A potted history of Victoria Gully

Members of the Victoria Gully Group don’t necessarily live next to the gully, but want to
improve its environmental value. We started in 2012 working with Parks Victoria in the
Clinkers Hill Conservation reserve (south end of the Gully) to remove rubbish including 2 car bodies, then weed gorse, broom and blackberry. We’ve had many “broom-pulls” over the years.
The degraded main Gully was more than our group could handle so we developed a
management plan and DELWP responded to the community interest, making the gully more pedestrian-friendly by gorse and thistle removal and slashing. Since then DELWP / DEECA and Connecting Country have provided advice, plants and guards, fencing, help with grant applications and occasional work crews such as CVA and Green Army who tackled the dense woody weeds upstream. More recently a (fairly) new member has removed rubbish, planted, created permeable dams and cut a foot pad to the narrow upper end of the gully where it hits private land.
There are four exclosure plots all north of where the track-crosses the Gully.
The first two plots (2013) had low fences. The theory which proved correct was that
kangaroos will not jump into small areas (about 5 metres square). These plots are now
maturing. The “frog ponds” exclosure (2016) follows a drainage line (not the actual creek).
The mixed clays and gravels of old alluvial workings haven’t supported standing water, but
our planting has produced a shady swampy area, and we do get frogs. DELWP built a
large exclosure plot at the north end of the gully to eventually fill the canopy gap. Notably,
Silver Banksia, once common but now nearly extinct, is doing brilliantly in the worked alluvial gravels.
We’re now concentrating on planting the creek banks which are generally ignored by the
large resident kangaroo mob so do not require fencing.

Barb Guerin