As Deb started work at 2pm today, I decided to checkout a new location. But where? Deb mentioned the Pink Lake Lookout and the Great Ocean Trail as a location with possibilities. As I had the Ford this sounded like a great spot to try.

First up though I decided to check out our location on Pink Lake to see if the Mosquito orchids have started to flower yet. This place unfortunately is getting to be a dumping ground for illegal rubbish and it actually had an abandoned van backed up on the other side of the barrier. I only found the leaves with sprouts growing, so a week or so off from flowering I guess.

Now time to check out the new location. I park the Ford at the lookout, where a family of friendly magpies greets you. One of them grabs a dead bird from my grill that would have been mummified, as it has been there for a few weeks. Crossing over the road I climb up to the seat on the Great Ocean Trail. Now which way? Right or Left.

I choose to go towards the Pink Lake Golf Club. The trail is paved so easy walking. However orchids don’t grow in paved walk trails, so I skirt the very edge looking into the surrounding scrub. I decide to leave the trail and head down into the valley via the cleared space underneath the over head powerlines. At a fallen banksia tree I did see some Caladenia leaves growing so things are promising. However as nothing else is found I push through a patch of grass trees (Xanthorrhoea platyphylla) back to the trail.

A little bit further along I leave the trail to to left and head in to a patch of open ground. It is here I find more leaves before finally stumbling across what I thought to be a lone Banded greenhood (Pterostylis vittata) in flower. After taking some photos I look around and there are many more flowering nearby. In fact the area is covered in them, ranging from 1cm to over 30cm in height.

After more searching I find a patch of smaller rosettes, so down on my hands and knees for a closer inspection as they are under the scrub. I find some orchids so close to being in full bloom, that it is frustrating to say the least. They are most likely Curled-tongue shell orchids (Pterostylis rogersii) which are coastal orchids found from Esperance to Binningup during the months June to August.

Time to move back to the trail, so I push through some scrub and stumble across some Cyrtostylis leaves. Upon closer inspection they have orchid buds around 2-3 cm in height, so flowering is not too far away. Will have to inspect later to confirm if they are Mosquito or Midge orchids.

Further along the track on the edge of the vegetation I find more Caladenia leaves, which is exciting for the season ahead. As I get closer to the golf course road the edge of the trail gets overrun in weeds, though some more Caladenia leaves are found in the less overrun areas.

Upon reaching the road I turn back and discover a Redbeak orchid leaf in the road base of the trail edge. Quickly looked for more but only the one leaf found. Made it back to the start of my trek with no other finds, so I decide to quickly check the trail in the other direction.

Checking the non-lake side of the track I find some more small Caladenia leaves where the trail heads down to the Eleven Mile Beach Road. However I head up a slope into the scrub for one final look. Banded greenhoods in flower are found which is great, followed up by more leaves. Time to leave as I have a Birthday BBQ to get to by 5pm and it is already after 4pm.

This location looks as though if may become a regular haunt for us given the number of leaves etc found on this one quick visit. Maybe next weekend I’ll bring Deb along as the Shell and Mosquito/midge orchids may be flowering. If not the Caladenia orchids will require a later revisit anyways.