Winmalee Ridge

Winmalee Ridge

On Monday 4th May, for our exercise, whilst practising self isolation during the Covid 19 pandemic, we took a bushwalk to Winmalee Ridge.  This is a short walk from our house into a track through the bush out to the ridgeline bordering Winmalee.   We took advantage of the pleasant weather to venture a little further than the residential streets and do an actual bushwalk.   However, in getting to the place where the bushwalk begins, we need to walk down a very steep residential street called Shakespeare Drive, so we decided to drive the car to the beginning of the bushwalk as we did not want to face the steep climb back up Shakespeare Drive before getting back to our house on Hawkesbury Road.

We left the car parked along the roadside and proceeded on the walk through the bush.  It was a beautiful sunny Autumn day and very pleasant walking through the bush.  The track was quite well defined in the early stages, but seemed to branch out into different directions after a while.  There is a wire fence running along one boundary and we could not venture into this area, which belongs to the Winmalee Sewerage Works.

There were many tall trees and lots of Angophoras in the process of shedding their bark revealing lovely smooth pinkish trunks. These trees are commonly known as the the smooth-barked apple.

Surprisingly we found there were a number of wildflowers blooming.  Here is a Lambertia formosa,  commonly known as the Mountain Devil and there were a number of these in flower.  Also some early Wattle, especially Acacia ulicifolia commonly known as Prickly Moses.  This little Wattle is found all through the Blue Mountains on sandy soils and heathland.  There were also lots of different varieties of Banksias.

The Banksia flowers were dotted around everywhere and I love their upright stiff bristle like appearance.  Some were small and others thinner and taller.  There were some Banksia serrata trees out on the rock platforms, with their grey knobbly bark and big black banksia seed pods dotted along the branches and it is these pods that helped to inspire May Gibbs write about her big bad banksia men in the adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie in her books for children.

Here is a tree, hollowed out by a bushfire.  These hollow trees provide resource or habitat for all  kinds of animal life and are an important part of the ecosystem.

We did not notice or hear any birds in the bush which was disappointing as I am a great lover of birds and like to photograph them in the wild.  Maybe it was just as well as I did not have my camera with me and was only relying on my phone camera, which would not have been good enough to zoom in on the birds.

I couldn't identify this little wildflower with its dainty white flowers.

About 8 years' ago I did a Native Plant Recognition course at the Wentworth Falls TAFE and did several field trips into the bush to identify various plant species.  I loved this course and would have gone on to do more, but unfortunately the Government pulled the funding of TAFE courses at the time and the opportunity was not there to go any further.  However, I still have my text books and will try later to identify this plant.  (Edit: Could be Epacris pulchella)

Banksia spinulosa, a hairpin Banksia in the Proteaceae family.  It grows from a lignotuber with multiple stems.  The leaves are linear, narrow and a couple of millimetres wide.  There were lots of these bushes with their stiff golden yellow spikes lighting up the bush like candles.

The bush seemed to be in very good condition with no sign of any weed infestation.  There were however, several sticks and branches which would have blown down in the recent very windy weather, but nothing that was not too difficult to step over!

We made it to the highest point on the Ridge which was a large flat rock perched on the edge of the ridge overlooking
Frasers Creek and in the distance the Nepean River, which we could not see.  At this point we were 299 metres above sea level.

We continued a little bit further along the track, but then it seemed to peter out, so rather than risk getting lost and not being able to find our way back, we turned around and walked back to our car after a very enjoyable little exercise break.