Train Tracks and Ground Orchids

On a beautiful spring day Roger dropped me at the top of Belair National Park as we drove home after an excellent lunch with family. I hadn't done as much walking lately, being busy with other things.  Non-exciting things I might add, like spending two days of virtual learning which left me with square eyes and a sore bottom as the current house-sit did not excel in the office chair department.

Happily not sitting down, I followed a hiking trail down the hill through bushland, stopping to listen to kookaburras and watch caterpillars doing busy caterpillar things.

 

Birds tweeted, the sun shone, the grass was brilliant green: I glanced casually to my left and there it was!

The Eastern Mantis Orchid, Caladenia tentaculata.  Often called the Spider Orchid.

Once I started seeing ground orchids I couldn't stop.

Donkey Orchid Diuris corymbosa.  Yes, with an application of imagination it looks kinda sorta like a donkey.  Maybe. This one cam with a bonus spider.

Pink Fingers Caladenia carnea

Wax Lip Orchid Caladenia major

All excited by my unexpected orchid spotting successes, I turned toward home, seeking a way through Belair NP that I hadn't been before. Up hill and down dale I went until I found myself on the Railway Track.  I suspect it may not have been a fully SA Parks-approved track given it involved wandering along beside a railway line along which freight trains were prone to thunder at random intervals, but it was on the Belair NP map so that was good enough for me.

I liked the railway track. It followed gentle railway gradients past long abandoned stations,

 

This is where the crowd used to disembark when they came up from Adelaide for a day in the park.

 

and curled around the edge of hills with views out across the National Park, while the railway ducked through cuttings.

 

 

Eventually the railway led me to a tunnel and the track took itself on an up-and-down-and-round-about detour over the hill.  Mind you, it was tempting to go straight through but I suspected the tunnel would feel a lot smaller should I be in it when a freight train came along, so over the top I went like the good little law-abiding bush walker that I was.

Short cut through the hill: for trains only.

Walking over the top was longer, but still very pretty, the grass all spangled with little white flowers which were possibly Three Cornered Garlic according to my newly-acquired and very shaky wildflower identification skills.

There were the remains of dead Bull Thistles too.

 

When I eventually left the railway to join Sheoak Road I had to clamber right past big signs which declared I shouldn't have been there at all, except they were slightly less effective by being at the end of my journey instead of the beginning. 

 

Really?  You should have told me sooner.  It was a nice walk though.

 

I crossed the railway for the final time at Pinera Station and went home to consult Prof. Google about the ground orchids and flowers in Belair NP just so that I could share this knowledge with you.

Blue Grass Lily.

Blue Scarlet Pimpernel.

Matted Bush Pea.

And now I have, so that is that for the day.