Australian Pilg Part 9 - A Morning Out

When I sat down to write this morning I noticed it was a lovely morning for a walk. So I dragged John away from his computer, packed a few snacks and we drove to McAlpin Reserve. 

The view out our living room window this morning.

McAlpin Reserve is only a few minutes drive from where we're staying here in Ringwood North. We walked there one Sunday afternoon several weeks ago. I was hoping it would be less busy than it was that other time but it turned out to be a very busy morning. John said it is some sort of holiday today.

You'd never know it by the photos I took but kids and parents were all over the play area like ants at a picnic. A number of them also came over to the pond to feed the ducks while we were there having our morning tea--mandarin oranges and gluten free biscuits (cookies). 

There were also a number of other adults of all ages walking on the paths, both with and without dogs. 

The lady on the path above is the only person I used my camera's magic eraser setting on to get the photo below. Most of the rest of the photos I just pointed my camera away from the people so it looks like a people free day despite being "busier than normal" as google maps said. It is a really beautiful reserve-- well designed and cared so it's no wonder it's so popular. 

After morning tea we walked around a little more in the Reserve and then took the path toward the Baringa Flora Sanctuary. It was just a few minutes walk away. 

Baringa Sanctuary has a bigger pond than McAlpin Reserve has but oddly the pond doesn't show up on Google maps at all. It was nice to see that no one else was there when we arrived. It was so peaceful to have the place to ourselves.

 

We were thrilled to see this mother duck with her ducklings. They came quite close to the bridge we were standing on.

After a few minutes I started getting a headache from the bright sun reflecting on the water. So we headed back to McAlpin Reserve where our car was parked and headed home. Thankfully my head stopped hurting after a few minutes back in the shade. 

This lycianthes rantonnetii aka blue potato bush caught my eye as we were leaving Burangi Flora Sanctuary.
My sister-in-law, Melissa, recently showed me how to use the search setting in my phone camera to find out the name of plants and flowers. I didn't do it at the time. But I used it just now by pointing my phone camera at the photo in my gallery on my laptop screen.