Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Parks Victoria has completed its network of new walks centred on the Garfield Wheel trailhead in the Castlemaine Diggings NHP. Maps and descriptions can be found here.

The new walks are marked by distinctive posts, and supported by online maps you can get by downloading the free Avenza map. The supporting note packages give plenty of detail about mining practices, and one of the walks, the short Garfield Bush walk, has notes on the local vegetation and bird life.

Nature creeps back: Breutelia moss colonising a mullock heap at the Nimrod mine. Mosses and fungi are highlights of winter walking at the Welsh Village.

Note that the new walks overlap somewhat with the Welsh Village walks in FOBIF’s local walks guide. The changed conditions make some of our directions hard to follow. A new edition of this guide will soon be published incorporating changes on the ground. In the mean time, walkers using our book should follow our maps carefully (they’re better than the Avenza ones, anyway).

The new track system certainly sparks up what was perhaps a tired precinct. The accompanying heritage notes might be a bit heavy on technical detail, but some of them are provocatively interesting. Take this, on the Garfield crushing battery:

‘Quartz was tipped into the battery from the raised tramline and pounded to sand by the stampers. The battery sand was mixed with water into a slurry and forced through mesh screens onto the sloping aprons or concentrating tables (also known as blankets). These were covered by copper sheets coated with mercury, which caught and amalgamated with the gold.

‘Periodically, the gold-mercury amalgam was scraped off the copper sheets and heated to vaporise the mercury and release the gold. Once cooled, the mercury was reused. The miners involved in this process would probably have suffered from mercury poisoning.

‘Mercury is a neurotoxin which damages the part of the brain that co-ordinates movement. It also harms the kidneys and other organs. Although it is illegal to use mercury in gold mining in many countries today, there are an estimated 10-15 million unregulated gold miners operating in 70 countries. About 15% of the world’s gold is produced by small-scale miners. Mercury is still widely used, causing irreversible neurological damage to workers.’

This is an uncommon example of heritage notes straying away from local colour and into the drama of life as it’s lived, and is welcome.

There are some disappointing features in these notes, probably typical of heritage discourse generally. A few examples:

–The Quartz Hill walk notes describe puddling wheels, but somehow forget to point out that these were seriously polluting. Captain Bull tried unsuccessfully to get them banned in 1855.

Near the Nimrod mine: A eucalypt perches precariously on the impressive slate wall; feral pines are invading from the plantations; a small flowering Acacia implexa softens the scene on the left; impressive patches of Purple Coral-pea are covering the bare earth. The mining landscape has many layers: ‘heritage’ notes which concentrate on technical details about mining fail to catch the reality of a changing landscape.

–When you compare the detail given to mining techniques, not enough is made of the Pennyweight Flat children’s cemetery. This is where environmental degradation runs crash into human life, and the result is seriously haunting. A feature of this location is the fine Grey Box trees, somehow framing the devastating reality below.

–the notes on sluicing are extraordinarily bland. The long term effect on our waterways was disastrous. How hard is it to say this?

— there’s a pleasant ‘goldfields treasure hunt’ sheet for ‘Junior Rangers’: participants are invited to search for 16 goldfields features. Apart from ‘coppiced trees’, all features are shafts, chimneys, and so on. We’d like to have seen, in addition, perhaps, ‘Native cherry’. Or even ‘destroyed waterway.’ There are plenty on offer.

Breutelia affinis with fungus: highlights of a winter walk in the Welsh Village area. You could say that they are ‘goldfields treasures’ too.

‘In the gloom of the forest floor, fallen branches are sheathed with fungal stripes of yellow and purple. But beneath the colourful surface, the fallen litter is alive with the clandestine workings of fungi.’

What can we learn from the lives of fungi? Underground Lovers brings us to our knees, magnifier in hand, to find out.

Fungi offer a way to imagine life differently. In Underground Lovers Alison Pouliot reaches down to earth, and deeper, to dwell with fungal allies and aliens, discover how fungi hold forests together, and why humans are deeply entwined with these unruly renegades of the subterrain. Told through first-hand stories — from the Australian desert to Iceland’s glaciers to America’s Cascade Mountains — Alison Pouliot shares encounters with glowing ghost fungi and unearths the enigma of the lobster mushroom. Melding science and personal reflection, she explores the fungi that appear after fire, how fungi and climate change interact, the role of fungi in our ecosystems, and much more.

Alison’s new book will be launched at Radius, 76 Main Road, Hepburn, on Wednesday 15 March at 6pm. All welcome. More details can be found here. 

Liz Martin has sent us this contribution.

Mount Alexander

I love to wander the ridges and gullies.

I often walk and find new places that I name. Valley of the dead trees is one. 

The different environments from the summit mist to the drier valleys are all worth exploring.

It is also a place for family walks and celebrations at the picnic ground or dog rocks. 

I love the misty days and the ancient rocks: the moss beds and the fascinating fungi.

It is also my refuge when life gets overwhelming and I wander the different areas with my camera, seeking out the leaves that have fallen,  lichen on the rocks and look forward to the fruiting of the mosses.

We have recently sent our 2023 FOBIF newsletter with a renewal membership form to members. If you haven’t received one or would like to become a member you can find the membership form and payment details here. 

Mount Alexander Shire residents have been asked to complete an online survey about priorities for MAS spending in the next financial year, 2023- 2024. The survey is a good opportunity to make submissions that recognise the natural environment as a priority, especially in the face of the climate and biodiversity crisis. There is a little over a week before the survey closes on (February 2). It can be found here. FOBIF’S submission can be found here.