Westmoreland Falls - last autumn. Nature baby

[naturelover]

“So, G’s coming to stay. How lovely. What are you going to do with him? You know, there are some great play centres in Launceston – one at MacD’s and one at the Tail Race. You can have coffee and watch them play.”
“Well, actually, K wants to take him to Pine Valley.”
“Where on earth’s that?”
“Oh, you travel for two hours by car, and then 45 mins by boat and then walk another two hours and you’re there.”
She looked at me in horror. “L. You have to adapt and adjust for children”, as if I had managed to produce a grandchild whilst somehow bypassing the process of parenthood. “No, take him to a play centre,” she repeated to make sure these indociles had understood.
“Thanks for the recommendation. We’ll be sure to tell K about these things.”

We did persuade her that Pine Valley was a long way away, and asked if she’d like to join in on an LWC walk instead, to Westmoreland Falls. She said she’d love it. One hour’s driving, and beautiful scenery at the other end.

I think there were 17 of us that day. No one seemed horrified or even nonplussed at the presence of a 1¾ year-old toddler. Needless to say, we were towards the back of the line, G toddling along as enthusiastically as his little legs would take him. Very soon we spotted the first (of many) beautiful fungi. It was a tiny mycena cystidiosa.
“Look Gus. Here’s a baby fungus.”
“Baby”
“Yes, it’s just a baby. Look how tiny it is.” He squatted down to examine it more carefully. We were joined by John and Pat, bent low. There was Malcolm behind a tree, spotting another one. Others were doing obeisance to their own findings. Gus caught on.
“Nana. Baby”, he shouted with glee as he found another. Progress was not speedy, as the forest had an abundance of these tiny, delicate, colourful forms. He needed to find and admire them; his nanny needed to photograph some of them. I think he enjoyed seeing her sprawling in the mud to get under certain ones. The web says the falls are an hour away, and, despite the plenitude of fungi, we probably took about that to reach the falls. Luckily Gus wasn’t the last one to arrive, so I didn’t have to feel guilty about holding people up. K went off to examine the cascades from different angles while B, Gus and I examined pretty stones with moss on them. Gus tried throwing a few baby sized ones as far as the creek, but they fell within about 30 cms of his protruding belly.
On the way back, he hitched a lift in his papoose to speed things up: the group was faster in this direction, most photographing having been completed. He may only be 1¾, but he weighs in at over 15 kgs. Luckily his mum is strong.

After lunch, we had hoped that he’d fall asleep as we changed location to Surprise Gorge, and the plan was that B would read and mind him while K and I walked the gorge. Gus was very disappointed when the other cars started leaving without us, but happy that Rolfe was taking his seat in our car. The party was obviously going to continue. We buckled him in and gave chase. There is no way, however, that he was going to sleep while there was a good walk on. In the end, we dropped K off to walk the gorge with the others, and drove Gus around to the far end, following the other cars that were doing that. Still he did not fall asleep. There was no choice. At the other end we had to get him out and proceed in a gorge direction to go and meet the other walkers as they emerged from the forest. Again there were lots of babies (fungi) to be found, so progress was not speedy. He enjoyed showing John and Pat his finds when they joined us. They in their turn wanted to show us their fungi shots on their camera. There were more pretty rocks, too, and time went by quite quickly on the outskirts of the gorge.
It was nearly dark by the time everyone was back, and certainly was dark by the time we arrived at Launceston. Gus had enjoyed a lovely day with the club and even slept in until 7.30 the next morning.
The following day he was excited to find more babies in the Launceston gorge, and the day after he went to the Into the Wild exhibition at the Art Gallery / Queen Vic museum. He did a small exchange of gifts before we left, depositing a few acorns outside the display tent, and grabbing a small stone and a handful of nice rich earth from just outside the door as we departed. “What a lovely souvenir of the gallery”, said a lady leaving at the same time.
I’m glad my grandson finds Mother Nature’s provision to be more entertaining than commercial plastic play centres.

[Lones]

What a lovely story I love seeing my little nephew, now aged 4, enjoying these beautiful places too

[cajun]

Bought a smile to my dial!