Spent Monday morning under a leaden sky, squelching along a sodden track and then climbing a long hill, with an edgy breeze decreeing several layers of clothing.

A miserable Monday? No way.

I was among those who took a walk through our wildflower country, or one precious segment of what’s left of it.

Led by Janet Whish-Wilson and Shirley Williamson, of Noosa Parks Association, over coastal heathland and the high dunes behind Marcus Beach, it was one of the first events in the Sunshine Coast Spring Wildflower Festival, which continues until the end of the month.

As I watched my fellow walkers marvelling at the diversity of beauty, ranging from the boronias and other floral jewels on the ground to the wedding bush and banksias at eye level, I gave silent thanks to those visionaries who fought and won the battle to save what is now the Noosa National Park, East Weyba section, from the developers.

And then my memories went back to a Sunday in the early 1960s when the wildflower plain that is now the Sunshine Coast Airport lay awaiting the bulldozers.

I took my family and some friends down to where it would be raped next day and we gathered big bunches of wildflowers in glorious profusion.

We also carefully dug up some of the smaller plants in the hope of giving them a home in our Nambour gardens.

Naughty? Perhaps, but next day they would have all lain crushed and buried.

The price of progress.

If you’d like to join one of the wildflower walks planned for the rest of the month, call the Sunshine Coast Regional Council on 5475 8501, and if there is room on the walk you have in mind, you’ll be registered.

Fields of Gold
On a late afternoon trip up the Bli Bli Valley, flooded with the glow of the setting sun, I found myself humming the haunting song Fields of Gold.

It was a beautiful but saddening sight, because since the closure of the Namour sugar mill, there’s been precious little gold in the languishing canefields.

It will be interesting, therefore, to see what comes out of a field day called “Cropping the Canefields” to be held on Wednesday (August 27) at “Rosemere”, Brandon’s Road, Yandina.

Just some of the options to be discussed by expert presenters will be cereal crops, cabinet timbers, agriforestry, bamboo, horticulture and biocane, so perhaps one day the fields will again be green.

For information about this important field day, call Louise Armstrong of Maroochy Landcare on 5472 7397.

My lament last week about my short-term memory, and particularly my problem with the whereabouts of my spectacles, brought a “welcome to the club” email from AAT reader Geoff Raph, who added: “Sorry Pete, forgot what I was going to tell you.”

Maybe it was to remind me, Geoff, that you were the optometrist who fitted me out with my first pair of specs after I arrived in Nambour way back in 1957.

rich.29@bigpond.net.au