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| On the Lost City Track |
Saturday is a bright, sunny morning so I'm hoping it will stay that way.
I head for Lost City, doing my best to ignore the stunning rocks on either side of State Mine Gully road. I get onto the actual National Parks road to the Lost City track and the road is much better than the access road to the park boundary
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| Maybe triggerplant leaves? on the Lost City track |
Not only the road, but also the parking facilities and a toilet block are new. It's good to see a toilet block after the litter that I experienced yesterday.
I reached the lookout and the view is amazing. I haven't got time to walk through to the second lookout which is a 1 to 2 hour walk away, but I walk down a little way to be amongst these magnificent formations. I clearly will have to return one day when I've got more time.
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| From the first lookout |
And there's heaps of wattle in flower. And that is beautiful too.
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| And the wattle is gorgeous |
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| Wattle and pagoda rocks |
A little further on I can get a view right down into the ravine. There's a little waterfall which may be over a little bit of a weir, but it's quite precipitous absolutely beautiful and I could probably spend a whole day here.
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The ravine
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I'm later told that the track goes down into the ravine and crosses the river a few times, maybe this is why the track was closed on the day I has planned to explore it, if the river level was up after the heavy rains.
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| Its a long way down to the river |
So I have used up most of my 'play time' this morning at the Garden of Stone National Park, exploring the first third of the Lost City track.
I did from time to time scan the side of the track for sign of orchids but nothing.
As I drive towards Mount Tomah, I am pretty much driving along a ridge and from time to time there are the most tantalising views of panoramas with escarpments, typical of the Blue mountains I guess.
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| A little poser at the Botanical Gardens |
I do divert briefly into the Botanic Gardens, but I really don't have time to look around properly. They're a garden with a view in a big way and the contents of the garden looks really interesting but I'm not going to be able to fit that in as well as everything else today. I shall have to come back another time.
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| A garden with a view |
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| A garden with a view |
Then on to the sea urchin science Centre at Kurrajong. Ashley was waiting for me; I had booked the 3-hour tour and it was fascinating. The time passed really quickly and in the end I think I spent the best part of 4 hours plus with him as he told me everything I'd ever wanted to know about sea urchins, and more, as well as looking at his collection of shells.
His sea urchin collection is really magnificent and looking at some of the adaptations and variations in form as well as colour and discussing the physiology and morphology kept me well entertained for the afternoon.
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| Colour variation in Holopneustes inflatus |
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| Just one example |
I saw sea urchins that are adapted to life on a high impact intertidal rocky shore with really strong tube feet to hold onto the rocks and highly specialised and modified tube feet and spines to enable them to breathe when the tide is low.
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| Adaptations for a rocky shore |
I also looked at sea urchins that have been found at 7,500 m depth. Some with very strange appearance but because they are from depths greater than those of which they can be observed. Little is known about them.
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| Highly modified spines |
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| Highly modified spines |
I learned that colour is often based on environment and diet - so shallow water urchins that feed on green algae tend to be green, deep water species tend to be red/orange and in between tend to be purple.
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| A deeper water urchin |
We talked at some links about the increasing variety of subtropical species that are making it South and are now regularly found around Sydney.
We also looked at a few anomalies. Sea urchins are usually pentamerous or pentaradially symmetrical, (5 parts) clearly seen in the deep water specimen above, but occasionally nature throws a whammy and produces one that is 4 parts (tetramerous) or one that is 6 parts (hexramerous)
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| A backlit tetramerous (4 part) specimen |
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| A 6 parts (hexramerous) specimen |
I commented on one pencil urchin that it looked a bit like a sputnik. Ashley related a story, which was reported in the newspaper, of one such specimen being reported to police as an unexploded mine. 😆
After 3 and a bit hours in the sea urchin room, we went next door to look at the shells and there was almost as much variety there.
Apart from stock-standard amazingly coloured shells and incredible forms, there were also shells that collected other shells to stick onto them, shells that favoured growing in and on other items, including rubbish that should not have been there, and shells with some pretty incredible behaviours - exploding snails???
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| Who'd have thought?? |
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| Nerites - all the same species |
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| Slit shells - a new one for me |
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| Colour variation in ablaone (the blue is artificial) |
Then on to my nearby accommodation for the night, a little Airbnb granny flat under somebody's house which is perfectly adequate and comfortable and definitely better than the caravan park cabins I've stayed in.
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