Duck Hunting in Royal National Park

Having a certain amount of success in some struggles with big business, I waltzed out of my unit with a lighter step and went “duck-hunting”! Here in NSW the duck hunting season appears to have opened. Now I know that in Victoria the Game Management Authority (“game” is such a strange word for slaughtering wildlife!) opened the duck season down in that state this year on 26^th April and closed it on 30^th May. I also know it set bag limits. Here in NSW, we have no bag limits on the ducks I hunted today and they did not block my use of a Canon!

I should explain: the duck I was hunting today is a tiny orchid (Caleana major) and it is not harmed one little iota if I shoot it. But, like duck hunting south of the border, some hunts fail and today was a total failure. No, I was not disappointed. I am sure I shall succeed very soon. The ducks are emerging!

Besides, there were so many other delights along the way!

Beards are budding! (a future Calochilus bloom)

Probably a hybrid of Caladenia catenata and C carnea

There was also an eccentric and delightful lady who was naughtily picking up pebbles on the fire trail. She knew it was wrong, confessed for her sins (three tiny pebbles) and it transpired that she crushed them and used them as natural colour in art. She was thrilled to learn it was iron laterite, the source of that reddish colour. It was as though she was of Country.

But my hunt continued, and as it was a busy day ahead, I shall just place some images here to enable readers to just revel in the colour, the shape and the variety that exists within Royal National Park.

I will, however, and in an aside, note that this national park was once simply called The National Park, became Royal National Park in a forelock tugging exercise when it was renamed in 1955 after Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia passed by in the train during her 1954 tour. I wonder how many names the area had once prior to occupation beyond 1788? I wonder how we would respond if we returned that park to ancient names of the peoples whose land it was! Whose land it is!

But let us go on that floristic journey! The images are hidden in the PDF attached to this entry.

Suffice to say, it would have been nice to have spotted a “duck” but who can complain after that gentle stroll! Our natural world is precious and delivers to those of us who open to it!

I took a party of National Parks Associatwion members and guests on a field trip into this park on that day. We covered two sections; the short 10Z trail to Maddens Falls and the longer 10 trail. Over the course of the day, a day devoted mostly to botanising, we covered over 12km and this report is a short pictorial account of the event.

While I applaud the editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald (10th September 2023) (Blue Mountains would benefit from recognition of its cultural past) and the piece by Julie Power (The Blue Mountains is beautiful, but its cultural landscape has been overlooked), I am deeply concerned that the current draft plan of management for the Blue Mountains and Kanangra-Boyd National Parks is silent on its responsibility to the Commonwealth Government for the protection of the World Heritage values it is obliged to protect.

Sadly, the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Advisory Committee has now lapsed and as yet there is no clear route through which external, expert advice can reach either State or Federal Governments. It is all well and good for delegates attending ICOMOS to be given a tour of the scenic viewpoints overlooking the Blue Mountains but that does not replace the expertise that was on that committee.

Good governance requires transparency, community oversight and expert advice. If the Commonwealth Government is to take its responsibilities for protecting World Heritage values seriously, it must not leave it up to the States to self-regulate. Just remember that the previous State Government wanted to flood much of this area for the sake of housing developments on the floodplain of the Nepean!