Francis King Rainforest and Fungus Photo Tour: Lush!

Welcome to Francis King Park, a lush tropic rainforest visited just before the snowfall. It is nearby, wheelchair accessible (kinda) with boardwalks and most of all: verdant views.

This is where I would stand and mumble, “My name is Beth, and I….am a camera whore.” Yes, it is an addition, more than a hobby, I want to see what can’t be seen. And relish in what can. This is a forest ALIVE in winter: rivers of green running up trees.
I like green. Along the wheeling path the planners even had a hut to rest out of the rain. It too had been taken back by the forest, as spores and moss can’t tell the difference between fallen logs and these nice cut up logs and that you nail together for them to cling to. It is scenic plus a reminder to not stay and stare TOO long. Here, a rolling wheelchair grows no moss, cause everything else does!

We have a friend who likes fungi, and personally, I would like to know more about the fungi we find (so please help identify if you know – moss I think I can spot!). So whenever Linda or I see Fungi in the rainforest, we get excited to take some photos (unlike the other 92 photos we took on this trip). I have the camera with macro and most important: a complete rotational swivel screen to help me shoot pictures in macro upside down while seeing and aiming the camera. It is the Canon’s wheelchair friendly digital camera (this ‘old’ $299 camera costs over $600 now if you can find it, it is that popular).

As we wheeled and walked and took pictures, the sun would come and go, adding and taking away colours. One stump looked like something out of a Lovecraft or William Hope Hodgson’s story: where a ship, or forest camp, lulled in doldrums, has shambling human outlines in the fog, tinted green with soft and spongy gaits, saying, “Too late for us, too late.”
The truth is, the very thing that we fear, is often the most beautiful (and I fear fungi, a little). But how can I fear this, which was on the stump I was taking pictures of earlier: they are sculptures, mixing fractals with marble works in miniature.
One tree had two different colored growths, which ran up and down it like steps, or lost colonies, alien ones, which we can barely visit or glimpse.
Down around the other side of the tree, Linda was able to carefully step off the trail to capture some of the overlooked fungi, a colony unattached to a tree.
Here it reminds me of glass, blown glass from Venice, or the kind you have in vases and plates, with the candy crackled edges.
Here is what that looks from above, a fungi most people would have walked by. It is smaller than a hand, and easy to miss when looking up, unaware that sometimes, it pays to look at things from a different viewpoint, and stop for a closer peek.
If we ever find wild mushrooms, you will be the first to know.