Democracy Rules!

Well the result is in!
Fourteen good people have cast their vote.
The results:
Abstentions = 1
Cockatoos and Parrots = 2
Raging Water = 11.

Well that looks like a landslide waterslide for a post about raging water.

Sorry Cockatoo Lovers, you’ll have to wait for another time.

So here we go, on Sunday Deb and I drove out to the old Maroondah Reservoir, near Healesville in the Yarra Valley.

The reason we went was that with the flood rains we have had recently the lake has filled and for the first time in over a decade water is going over the spillway.

From where we parked the car we strolled through the gardens. Spring has sprung (so to speak) and the Rhododendrons are in full bloom.A close up.Past the blossoms we heard the roar of water.

Here was the cause, an artificial waterfall that shoots the water from the dam’s spillway back to the valley floor.
I could get very close to the bottom section of the cascade.Normally there is a path open across the weir to the base of the larger fall But at the moment it is closed because it is too wet and slippery.

Another angle on the lower cascade.Deb and I began the walk up through the gardens towards the dam wall.
We paused to grab some photos of this port-wine magnolia. Then again to have a seat in this summer house. The view back down the stairs towards the valley floor.Through a window in the garden you get a view of the larger waterfall.We crossed the dam wall, and a bridge over the spillway.This fallen tree trunk trails a finger in the racing water.We climbed the path up to the look out. You get a view down over the falls.I took some shots of wattles flowering in the bush. After Eucalyptus trees, Wattles are perhaps the next most widely spread group of plants in Oz. They range in size from small shrubs to substantial trees.

Most varieties flower in this typical yellow colour. The flowers are tiny, each about the size of a fingernail.

Some species have a white flower.I haven’t got any shots, but in spring whole areas in the bush can be golden yellow with wattle blossom.

As a total by-the-way, Australian wattles (which are Acacias) are called wattles because early European settlers used them in the construction of 'wattle and daub' walls in their first houses.

A final shot of me (courtesy of Deb) at the look out. I think I look tired, not from the walk, but from the hectic week I had at work.
Thank goodness for spaces like this near Melbourne so I can unwind on the weekends.