Cabone Benel: Beehive Fall Creek, trekking to Genoa Gorge

Beyond the paths of the First People, beyond the wanderings of the mad Scot and his old horse abandoned after the Alpine gold rush, beyond the haunt of bird or marsupial. Only bees come here.







More location details: Cann River

Comments

Jai Baidell said…
These are awesome and beautiful photographs of wild places. I've never see bottlebrush growing wild like that. But it isn't true only bees go there -- after all you went there! I've become interested in rakali recently, have you ever seen any?
Peter Quinton said…
Hi Jai :)
...and wild dogs chased me out of here once as well.
It is said that the outcasts, running from tribal law, tried to survive here, forming a rudimentary but lawless society. Atop the largest cascade i see some evidence of systematic carving which lends support to habitation over time, but it would have been a life on the edge of extremes.
As for the shy Rakali - i sometimes find the Oz 'otter' in upper reaches of permanent creeks - in my own creek when looking for platypus i often find these instead. At Gypsy Point, on the Genoa River, they live in large numbers close to human habitation (especially the grand river holiday cottages) and will come very close if you are still.
I suspect most people mistake these for rats, but they are very different. I will try find a couple of pics of the beasts at Mallacoota - and pretending to be platypii :)
Jai Baidell said…
I wonder how much of the bush has become no-go because of feral dogs, pigs, horses, and on this side of the mountains, deer. I went to a pest control thing at the council, and they spent a fair bit of time talking about deer. One story is that they escaped through a broken fence. Other people thought hunters had released them. They cause lots of accidents quite apart from the environmental damage. I heard that someone bushwalking near Jerrabomberra was attacked by wild pigs. Quite frightening. I think I'll just stay inside. I can't outrun any of those feral creatures.
Peter Quinton said…
Hi Jai
Most feral animals are timid unless approached - even wild dogs, but it pays to walk with a group (i have really enjoyed walking with the Orange/Bathurst Bushwalk club.
Deer are an interesting problem. There is a faint suggestion that the deer found today down in the wilds of Gippsland may have been here for a long time - perhaps thousands of years. From a distance it seems unlikely, but the locals are divided on the issue. Gippsland is the least traveled part of the country - places here have not seen human footfall for a century.

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