Tim the Yowie Man: Nature's curiosities in Canberra, Namadgi and beyond

The Australian Alps, and Namadgi National Park in particular, are well known for their wonderful granite outcrops, many of which have featured on these pages. However, this month, Matthew Higgins, one of this column's favourite outdoors correspondents, found "a corker up Hospital Creek".

"I'd been there before with other walkers, but this time was able to explore further, and alone," reports the avid bushwalker, who stumbled upon, "not one but two huge 'lintel' stones balanced across massive standing boulders, like Stonehenge but on steroids".

Matthew wonders "what Indigenous significance this place has", explaining "it is both sheltering and powerful".

"And, to top it off, there's a massive split in a huge boulder through which it is possible to walk, rather like a catacomb in an ancient tomb, with the sunlight just peeping through from above," raves Matthew, who has informally nicknamed the secret location, "The Lintels".

While exploring another part of the park, Matthew witnessed "a serious male kangaroo fight".

"They were so close I could have touched them and they paid me absolutely no notice - so fixated were they on belting each other."

Luckily, the timber rail fence on the edge of the Yankee Hat car park was between them and our intrepid adventurer. "They were certainly intimidating, up on their toes and tails, being well over two metres tall," says Matthew, who tried to break up the fight by shouting and waving his arms. "They took one look at me and went straight on with the barney."

Matthew isn't the only reader to have observed a boxing kangaroo in the bush. While returning along Woolcara Lane after a recent Canberra Bushwalking Club walk in Yanununbeyan Reserve (a little-known reserve located just to the north-west of Captains Flat) Bob Dewar noticed this giant "wooden" kangaroo. I don't know about you, but I think it looks a bit like Matilda, the mascot from the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games.

While driving down Brown Mountain on the way to Merimbula, Bruno Yvanovich, of Waramanga, was "surprised to see a common domestic rooster on the road about half a kilometres or so below Piper's Lookout". Bruno reports "he looked happy enough and was busy pecking away around the edge of the road for food", adding, "it wasn't the place to stop for a photo, but I'm wondering how he got there, as it's deep in the forests and a long away from any kind of human habitation". Bruno further wonders if the rooster was "an escapee from someone's load", adding, "you'd think with foxes and road traffic his life span would not be long".

Still at Piper's Lookout, Roger Farrow, of Urila, recently walked the knockout boardwalk at adjoining Flynn's Hut with friends from the Australian Native Plant Society. Although Roger agrees with this column "about the great patch of rainforest and the plants and scenery", he does warn that "the track down to the boardwalk was very slippery with loose gravel".

For Roger, the highlight of the stroll was noticing a big stand of an endangered shrub, Parris' Pomaderris, (Pomaderris parrisiae) at the lower car park. "Although it's not much to look at this time of year, it would be covered with golden flowers in spring," reports Roger, who wonders if anyone else has spotted it.

A bit closer to home, Amanda Horne snapped a photo of this eye-catching beehive in a tree in a front garden in suburban Canberra. Amanda has wisely declined to name the street or suburb, "in case roads are clogged with kilometres of traffic queuing to see the hive".

It's certainly one of the biggest I've seen in a suburban yard.

In response to this column's series on little-known graves around the region, Rod Taylor, of The Canberra Times' Ask Fuzzy column, reports that on a recent visit to the Delegate cemetery, he noticed and photographed "evidence of concerning graveyard activity".

"Unhappy with their accommodation, the residents appear to have left," quips Rod, adding "where they've gone is anybody's guess, but some of your readers might have some suggestions".

Still in the realm of the paranormal, Shaun Stephens, of Banks, claims that while driving his ACTION bus near Old Parliament House just after 6pm on a recent weekend he "saw the outline of a man resembling former prime minister of Australia, John Curtin".

"He was standing on the corner of Walpole and King George Terrace near the pedestrian crossing," reports Shaun, who adds, "maybe I was imagining things, but his brown suit, hairstyle and small round glasses were so distinctive".

Shaun, who insists he definitely wasn't getting the apparition he saw confused with the life-sized sculpture of John Curtin and Ben Chifley also on Walpole Crescent wonders if anyone else "has seen the ghost of John Curtin near Old Parliament House".

What? As previewed in last week's column, the long-awaited launch of Peter C. Smith's The Clarke Gang: Outlawed, Outcast and Forgotten (Rosenberg, 2015) will be the talk of Braidwood and beyond this weekend.
When? Saturday, May 23, at 2.30pm at the Braidwood Servicemens Club. All welcome.
Expect: A big crowd with many descendants of both the police and the Clarke Gang present to hear Smith explain why the gang has virtually been forgotten while another bushranger, Ned Kelly, has become one of the most well-known figures in Australian history.
Don't miss: The display cabinet of memorabilia, including one of the actual double-trigger Tranter revolvers issued to a party of special police.

Last week: Congratulations Peter Tozer, of Kaleen, who correctly identified last week's photo taken by Robbie Wallace as Geary's Gap on the Federal Highway at the southern end of Lake George during road works in the late 1990s. If you look carefully to the right when approaching Geary's Gap from Canberra, you will notice a field of more than 70 xanthorrhoeas (grass trees), which Robbie helped move during the road work that resulted in the duplication of the highway. "Although a few have withered, most are doing well," he reports.

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to timtheyowieman@bigpond.com. The first email sent after 10am on Saturday, May 23, with the correct answer wins a double pass to Dendy cinemas.