Duck Hunt

Well wha’d’ya know? We had rain again overnight which persisted into the morning. The pattern continues. If I ever meet the person responsible for the rumour that Australia is a warm, dry country, I’m gonna strangle them.

Yesterday, David and Kay had arranged an evening BBQ with several of their friends attending. They wanted the Australian contingent to meet their weird English friends. One of their Ozzie friends was a lady called Judy who was also into wild flowers. We saw a collection of here pictures from Western Australia and guess who would like to visit there, now? 😉 We mentioned our curiosity with and lack of success at finding the so-called Flying Duck Orchid. “Ah, yes”, she said, “there are  some of those very close to here”. Well, say no more. Once again David was engaged to take us on another hunt, this time for Flying Ducks.

We were heading for what turned out to be the completely inappropriately named Sweetwater Creek. We did eventually make it down to said creek and the waters therein were a dense, muddy brown colour; there was absolutely nothing sweet about the waters at all.

Our approach took us down a rough forest track. David was in his element playing with a few toys on his recently acquired Land Rover Discovery 4. As we rode over the forest equivalent of speed bumps, he had an excuse to raise the ride height and use descent control. The Landie was in its element, too. Fun though riding down the track was, we explained that it was nigh on impossible to spot much at all while driving by, albeit slowly, in a vehicle. He dropped us off to walk while he and Kay continued to drive. They’d walk back up to meet us.

Early on during our downhill wander, we found several examples of an orchid, so we were already reasonably content. These were clearly nothing that resembled a flying duck, though. They were, we think, Purplish Beard Orchids.

Continuing our search, at the top of a slight rise which I’d already passed, Francine went slightly off piste to look at something else. As she came back on piste, she spotted a small cluster of excitement; eight stems or so. She called me back. I stared in awe at the most amazingly shaped orchid I’ve ever had the pleasure of clapping eyes on. Looked at head on, it’s just an attractive orchid, deep purple in colour. Looked at from the side though, in profile, the attractive orchid was transformed into the most unlikely looking cartoon-like representation of a flying duck. Some shots even make it appear to have eyes above the beak. Absolutely incredible. Every time I look, I still can’t believe it.