Category Archives: News

Bright winter sunshine, obscure corners

A bitterly cold morning didn’t deter FOBIF walkers from tackling some obscure corners of the Columbine and Salters Creeks valleys on Sunday. The corners turned out to be even more obscure than intended when a navigation error by walk leader … Continue reading

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The scalping of Fryers Ridge [1]

Visitors to the Fryers Ridge this past week have been stunned to find that major works on the verges of the Ridge Road have scoured the earth bare, virtually eradicating a large part of one of the region’s most significant … Continue reading

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Maybe THIS is the saddest sign in the region?

The sign depicted in our July 5 post may have been trumped by this one, on the Fryers Ridge: ‘DO NOT…remove soil or rock.’ This injunction doesn’t apply to road works.  

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Fire risks in the Mount Alexander region: public and private responsibilities

In his response to FOBIF’s fire submission [see above], Andrew Koren made the following observations about fire danger in our region: ‘Communities in Castlemaine, Chewton and surrounds are considered to be at extreme property impact risk from bushfires on days … Continue reading

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FOBIF Winter School Holiday Program warms the heart and fires the imagination of our local children

Over fifty children attended events at the Castlemaine Botanical Gardens this week as part of the FOBIF Winter School Holiday Program. Three events were held as part of the program, which aimed to give our local families an opportunity to … Continue reading

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Over the range and far away

It’s not the Himalayas, but FOBIF walkers found the ascent of Gough’s Range satisfying enough in glorious winter weather on Sunday. Greenhood orchids were on display, and a surprising stand of regenerating Casuarinas was an encouraging feature of a forest … Continue reading

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Youth walk on Mount Alexander

Nioka Mellick-Cooper was the main organiser of this walk and she wrote the following post: The first 2015 youth bush walk took place on the Mount Alexander (Leanganook) and was a great day. There were 28 people that came bright and early … Continue reading

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FOBIF school holiday program

FOBIF is running three nature-based events for primary school children in the upcoming school holidays.  Places are limited and booking is essential. Information about the program can be found on this FOBIF page.

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Grooming Kalimna

As of today, Parks Victoria has started on a program of grooming vegetation in Kalimna Park along the town edge and Moonlight Creek. The program aims at eliminating mainly exotic weeds as a fire protection measure [creating a roughly 50 … Continue reading

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Mt Alex bike track on track, but land status uncertain

The 2015 State budget papers show that the Government’s Regional Infrastructure Fund is to be used to provide money to advance the design and construction of mountain bike tracks on the lower slopes of Mount Alexander. As we have previously … Continue reading

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