The weather has been alternately too hot and too wet for enjoyable walking, for what feels like months, but I couldn’t resist going down to the Town Common yesterday morning. It’s looking very lush after the rain (about 1300 mm between Jan 28 and Feb 12) but it has dried out well. The road in to Freshwater Lagoon was already open again, somewhat to my surprise, although the road to the Quarantine Station wasn’t.
I chose to walk in from Pallarenda to Tegoora Rock anyway, and turned left towards Freshwater at the track junction. (I didn’t walk up to the lookout this time although it’s the best spot for views of the park.)
Just to the left of the Freshwater trail is a wide area of mudflats, and that’s as far as I went. A look at the map reveals that this broad area drains into Three Mile Creek, which the road crosses just before Pallarenda. I saw a dingo there early last year, and a wallaby on the track this time.
There were lots of butterflies and dragonflies and a good number of other insects but very few spiders. Most of the birds I saw were egrets (several species) and plovers (Masked Lapwings if you prefer the ‘correct’ common name).
The Town Common Conservation Park is big enough and diverse enough that one can spend a day or half-day there every month for a decade without getting stale, as I have found. This link will take you to all posts tagged ‘Town Common’, many of them featuring its wonderful birdlife. Having such a place on the edge of town is a privilege and a delight.
