Fungi fascinates me

Whenever I go into a rainforest I am always on the lookout for fungi.  It intrigues me with its beautiful shapes and colours.  I don't know anything about them but I have a book coming from Amazon.com (thanks to my son and DIL!) that should explain them to me.  The book has six hundred species explained but I wonder just how many species there actually are.
I went to Mt. Lewis on Saturday as a participant in a photography guided tour.  Our guide, Paul, was very knowledgeable and was able to point out many interesting things for us.  We were in search of the blue worm that Paul had spotted at Mt. Lewis a few days prior, but alas, none on our visit.  Paul did email us all a photo of the half metre long worm.  I think I would die of fright if I actually came across one but I will keep my eyes open.  They grow up to two metres in length and have about the same circumference as a snake.  They are also fluorescent blue!

A lovely little rainforest stream that we came across.  

However, back to the fungi. On this trip I saw varieties that I had never seem on previous trips.  They are so beautiful and in a myriad of colours. I took dozens of photos and these are my favourites.

It was hard to capture the size of this one.  It was about 20cm wide.  A giant!

After Mt. Lewis we went to Rifle Creek near Mt. Molloy where we came across these native grevilleas.  The colours in them are simply beautiful.

Our last port of call before the tour ended was to Abattoir Swamp.....I know.....terrible name!  It is a bird lovers area with a lovely swampy lake that is normally home to hundreds of variety of birds.  Sadly we didn't get to see any.  I think early in the morning or late in the evening might have been the best time.

We ignored the warning and walked the boardwalk at Abattoir Swamp.  It was however, very treacherous !

A the end of our tour we enjoyed mandarins, picked in the morning, from our tree.