Early morning walk at Hidden Valley

I woke at 6.30 on the Sunday morning of our weekend at Hidden Valley and took my camera for a walk down to the river nearby (I would have taken people, too, but they were still asleep). It was barely light enough for photography so my first shots were a bit dark but the little river was so pretty I couldn’t resist.

River at Hidden Valley
Rushing down its rocky bed

My side of the river had been cleared some years ago so I was walking through long grass and scattered small trees, although trees on the other side were much denser and bigger. As I made my way upstream I came to a broad shallow pool:

Calm pool in the river
Still waters

Western rivers are famously transient and this one counts as a Western river since it runs down the Western slopes of the Great Dividing Range (its water must end up in the Burdekin). A few weeks ago it would have been carrying three or more times as much water, as fallen trees and scoured banks attest, but the pool was absolutely still when I saw it. I didn’t see a platypus but I can believe they live here.

Reeds in cloudy blue water
The water is faintly blue with fine silt

It was so early that many insects were still sleeping, some of them prettily dew-draped. Photos of sleeping bees, a mud dauber wasp, shield bugs (not asleep) and a nondescript small triangular moth are all on my Flickr photostream – just click the links to see them. The most beautiful of all was a dragonfly:

Dew-covered red dragonfly
I will wake up when it’s warm enough.

 

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