the big storm

Yesterday Penny went for one of her favourite walks, along the Yarra River at Warburton.

But what was this? A big mess at the entrance!

But no worries. Someone had been very busy clearing up the fallen trees after the big storm last weekend, so we could get through easily.

Many of the fallen trees were enormous. They must have been many decades old.

'Come away from this one,' I said to her, because it looked ready to fall the next time the wind blows.

Every fallen tree we saw was a eucalypt. Here's Penny examining the roots of one of them. This one had fallen across the river.

But here's something interesting... That tree was right beside a stand of Californian redwoods planted early last century. Not a one of them had fallen. (Can you see the fallen eucalypt across the path in the distance?)

I searched for references to this little glade of redwoods in Warburton township, but most sites direct to the bigger forest of redwoods in East Warburton,

Yarra Views Blog is the only site I could find that has information about the trees beside the Yarra River in Warburton itself. The writer says these trees were planted by a group of American Seventh Day Adventists. I recall from a previous blog post of my own that they were planted about 1922, which makes them older than the ones at East Warburton, I think. (I'm not sure about that.)

I think this site, about the forests ofWarburton, is fascinating.

Penny's sore paws

The day after our big walk at Marysville, Penny refused to go for a walk along the Yarra at Warburton, one of  her favorite places, so I popped her back into the car and went home to investigate.

To my dismay I realised that both her front paws were raw and weeping on the pads. What could have happened? I'm still mystified. I wonder if she might have rubbed them raw on the new gravel path to Steavenson Falls? Or perhaps she skinned them on the grid she walked over.

But if that were the case, surely the other dogs would also have sore paws, and I haven't heard that they do.

Perhaps her feet were hurting and Penny licked them raw. We have noticed her licking her feet recently (before that walk).

I bandaged the paws

and settled down near Penny with a good novel - a great read, actually. It was The Devil You Know, by Mike Carey. In that way I could sit watching her and constantly check she was not licking the bandages and making them wet. What a great excuse to do nothing but read!

Of course it was raining. It always seems to be raining when Penny has problems with her paws. Hmm...is this a clue? So she had to put up with plastic bags taped over her bandaged paws when she went out for a wee before sleep that night.

Two  days later she seems to be recovering. I've bathed the paws in Epsom salts twice daily for about five minutes. I'd take a photo now to show how the skin in healing over, but I don't want to draw her attention to her feet, because she would then start licking once agin.

I looked at many sites before using the Epsom salts, and thought this one had a good overview:

Epsom salt baths can help in several ways. Not only has salt and salt water been used as an extremely effective anti-bacterial agent for thousands of years, as evidenced by salted foods, many breeds, such as Labrador retrievers were bred to spend their days standing in salt water, helping to bring in fishing nets. Epsom salts contain not only sodium chloride, but potassium and nitrates that can aid in restoring the natural balance of bacteria on a dog’s skin. Salt can also raise the pH level of your dog’s skin, which may help regulate normal bacterial ratios. Regardless of the reason, a warm saltwater bath soothes the itch, helps disinfect the area and is a fun experience for dog and owner alike. Don’t rinse your dog’s feet after her bath. Let her lick the salt off or gently pat dry her paws. And don’t get any in her eyes.

So, no big walks for a while. Penny seems to be happy to lie around at the moment. She even takes some convincing to go down the back steps to have a wee.

Penny tippy-toes along the O'Shannassy Aqueduct Trail at Warburton

Yesterday, as as a friend and I walked along the O'Shannassy Aqueduct Trail on the hills near Warburton, we discussed the fact that Penny is never happy to walk towards Dee Road. As usual, she began to lag behind, and raced to the front of the group once we turned back towards Yuonga Road. Whenever we walk on this trail, Penny is unhappy. But whenever we turn in the other direction, onto the newer section towards Cement Creek, her tail goes up and she prances along in front. I've frequently wondered whether there's something about the place that makes her feel uneasy, something about the actual ground underfoot. Therefore, I was quite interested to read this piece of history:

Since its completion in 1914, the aqueduct experienced several failures, two of which occurred between Dee Road, Millgrove and Yuonga Road, Warburton. The construction of an open steel flume section of channel and the picturesque Dee Slip Bridge remain today and serve as a strong reminder of the challenges the aqueduct faced.

Looking around, I came across a Shire of Yarra Ranges document about landslips in the area. Most interesting. I guess Penny may be feeling something we humans cannot. But I don't think the footfalls of two humans and one 15 kilo dog are going to cause any problems. Seeing it's one of the most beautiful spots I've seen anywhere in the world, Penny will just have to tippy-toe along there with us.

Penny's fashionable shoe

Penny and I walked with a friend along the delightful O'Shannassy Aqueduct Trail above Warburton yesterday. My friend, more fashion conscious than I am (as you'd realise if you've seen any of my YouTube clips, almost everyone in the developed world is more fashion conscious than I am), commented on Penny's up-to-date blue pump.

Given that I don't even know what a pump is, I looked for a definition and found this one:

Pumps are one of the most popular styles of women's shoes, and they're also one of the most difficult to define. In their most basic form, pumps have closed backs, and low-cut fronts that hit closer to the toes than they do the top of the foot.

I leave it to you to decide whether Penny seems to be wearing pumps:

What actually happened was that as Penny walked, the Pawz shoe, which looks like nothing so much as a deflated balloon, folded itself around her foot. It seems that as the rubber ages, it gets kind of sticky, like old balloons do. Whatever the reason, Penny finds the shoe comfortable and it protects her foot.

Penny explores the giant redwoods

On Wednesday Penny and I discovered two new redwood trees planted near the river in Warburton. I wonder why they are there?



It seems as if someone has decided to extend the stand of trees that have been there since the early twentieth century.




It's quiet and strange under the gigantic old trees, because of the silencing effect of the pine needles, something we Aussies are not used to, but Penny seemed to like it there.

in the hills with my dog

Penny is used to spending some time up in the Yarra Ranges, and mostly hangs around in the house waiting for a chance to go out on a walk or a swim. And up there, the Yarra is usually clean, unlike its muddy lower reaches at Warringal Park in Heidelberg.



We usually cross the river at Warburton on the swinging bridge built by the Australian Army.





However, there is a home-grown attraction at our own place, now, because our neighbors have chooks - and they've situated the chicken run right beside our fence, just in the spot where the big branch fell from the mountain ash and crushed the top part of the fence.

Penny decided to sit and watch the chooks...



and watch...



and watch...



It's great to see her so calmly getting used to them, but until the fence is repaired, I won't be leaving her alone out there, that's for sure.

More about dogs walking on scary surfaces

As I said in my previous post, Penny seems wary when we walk along the O'Shannassy Aqueduct Trail near Warburton.

Another, new issue is the entrance to the walk. There's a lovely new gravelled carpark and entrance to the walk, where previously it was an unbotrusive gate on a hilside. And the entrance crosses an open metal grate that scared Penny at first. She made her way carefully over it when we arrived, her eagerness to start walking overcoming her timidity.

But when we returned, she remembered that it had been no fun crossing it, and sat down to think about it.



We didn't rush her and after a couple of minutes she headed across, but her tail position gives a pretty good idea of the fact that she was concentrating hard on not putting her paws between the thin metal rails.



Thanks, Berni, for all the lovely photos in this post and in the previous one! If anyone would like to see more of Berni's photography, or perhaps obtain copies of some, here is her RebdBubble website.

dog walking on the O'Shannassy Aqueduct Trail

Yesterday Penny walked along the lovely O'Shannassy Aqueduct Trail above Warburton. As it says on the Upper Yarra Valley website,

Nestled above the floor of the Upper Yarra Valley, O’Shannassy Aqueduct Trail follows the historic open channelled O’Shannassy Aqueduct, meandering through pristine forest which has been protected for nearly 100 years for water harvesting. The trail, stretching 30km in its entirety, passes mature fern gullies, creeks and plantations and offers spectacular views of the valley below.

Needless to say, we didn't walk 30 kilometres. It's a flat, easy walk, because it runs alongside an open channel that presumably had to slope only slightly so it could deliver water to Melbourne in the past.



We've decided the best thing to do next time is to park a car at two access points so we don't have to retrace our steps.

It's an on-lead walk, unfortunately, but we took Penny off-lead so we could take this shot of what the walk looks like.



I've done a lot of travelling in my time, but I have to say this walk, right on my doorstep, is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to.

One thing that puzzles me, however, is that Penny will often be quite reluctant to walk along this trail. She lags behind until I turn back and then leads the way to the car, jumping in readily to head down the mountain. I've speculated that there is something scary about the surface she's walking on, though to the human eye it seems okay. I've wondered sometimes whether this is a land-slip area and Penny feels vibrations I'm not aware of. The landslip report says

Landslips are a fact of life in the Shire of Yarra Ranges and have occurred for thousands of years.

The types of landslips that occur in the Shire included falling boulders, debris flows, slow long term earth movements, small landslips up to the size of a residential block and large landslips involving whole hillsides. Some landslips move relatively frequently whereas others have not moved for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.

Let's hope the ground stays steady underfoot for at least the next century!