Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Looking for  a few new ideas tossed up in good company?

The 2015 Mount Alexander Landcare Forum and Dinner will be held at the Campbells Creek Community Centre on Friday 19 June from 3.00 pm.

The program is as follows:

–3:00pm Welcome

–3:30pm Agroforestry & Landcare – A productive partnership? With Ben Boxshall from the Northern United Forestry Group and Wood 4 Good.

–Afternoon Tea

–4:30pm Applying Indigenous Fire Knowledge to Pasture management With Brendon Kennedy, Indigenous Facilitator from the North East CMA

–5:30pm Saving the Silver Banksias of Baynton Sidonia With Clare Claydon from Baynton Sidonia Landcare Group

–6:15pm Dinner and presentation on The Lake Bolac Eel Festival & Healing Walk with Una Allender & Brett Clarke – who will be performing some of his own songs at the forum.

The event is free to Landcare members and $10 for non members. RSVP to Max Schlachter by June 12 at max@connectingcountry.org.au or 5472 1594m

The weather on Sunday (17th May) was perfect for our FOBIF walk into the Nuggetty Range. Thirty-three people came along and it was good to see some newcomers to FOBIF on the walk.

Walkers enjoying the sun and morning tea at a high point on the Range.

The group was ably led by geologist, Brian Cuffley, who had prepared maps and an introductory handout. The Nuggetty Range, he explained

is part of the metamorphic aureole surrounding the Harcourt Granite to the north. The granite has heated and hardened the slate and sandstone bedrock and has produced a hard flinty rock called hornfels. Hornfels is very resistant to erosion, thus it has formed a range about the granite which has weathered away more rapidly.

This rock from the Nuggetty Gold Mine shows the contact between granite (right) and hornsfel (left).

Looking into the Nuggetty Gold Mine.

From the Nuggetty Gold Mine, the walk continued in a westerly direction to the lunch spot at the Rock of Ages (Mt Moorul). This location also had a terrific scenic outlook. Walkers then proceeded along the Rock of Ages Track to the beginning point on the corner of Church Street and Davies Lane, Maldon.

Our next walk will be led by Bernard Slattery in the Goughs Range. See walks page for more info.

Walkers along the Moonlight Creek edge of Kalimna Park in the last week have been puzzled by the fact that DELWP seems to have gone to a lot of trouble to protect a mountain of blackberries from its recent management burn. This involved carving a fire break around the area, about 50 metres long, and grooming surrounding areas of vegetation.

The mountain of blackberries is more than it seems, however: it conceals–or mostly conceals–a nineteenth century ruin, with adjacent orchard. Looked at with that in mind, it’s quite an evocative sight.

You could walk past it and see only blackberries, but it’s actually a historic site, probably dating from the 1870s. The wall of the ruin is to the right.

FOBIF had assumed that after the fire exercise had been finished, Parks Victoria would go back and remove the blackberries from the ruin. This is not the case: it’s a depressing fact that the weed is being left there, because it is seen as a deterrent to vandals who might be inclined to come and steal stone from the building.

This isn’t great news, given that there’s a big infestation of blackberry in nearby Moonlight Creek, and this particular weed has expanded its range dramatically since the breaking of the drought. But there’s logic in the managers’ position. Vandalism, in the form of graffiti on historic sites, and removal of relics and building materials, is an international problem. And, believe it or not, weeds have some kind of a record in protecting historic sites: as an example, an Aboriginal stone arrangement in the Western District was protected for many years by an infestation of thistles!

Walks for young people

FOBIF are running lots of events for kids this year. We have bushwalks for small children with their families, youth walks for people who are secondary school age and a June School Holiday program based in the Castlemaine Botanical Gardens. 

Our flyer gives information about all of these events and contact details. Many of the events are free or free for members, so tell your friends and families so that we can foster a love and protection of our local wild places. Click here to see a report on our first young people’s walk for 2015.

FOBIF April walk

At Dunn’s reef: a convenient guide was available for consultation on mosses brought out by recent light rain.

In spite of the months long dry, resilient moss came back after light rain in Muckleford in Mid April.

A wild and windy Sunday morning did not deter the 25 walkers who checked out the landscape of the Muckleford State Forest on Sunday 19^th April. Capably led by Neville Cooper this 7 km walk starting from the Red, White and Blue Poppet Head Mine went past the proposed site for a Castlemaine Hot Rod Centre (CHRC) where plans for a Dynamic Vehicle Testing Facility, Events and Recreation development are being discussed, and then on to a tour of Dunn’s Reef and a quick lunch break. The understorey through this area is gradually recovering and the bird life was taking advantage of this – an always changing landscape!

Next month’s walk will be in the Nuggety Ranges. Check the program for details.

Eight families from across Castlemaine came together to hear about restoration work and environmental values at the Clinkers Hill Bushland reserve on Sunday the 26th April.

Elvyne explaining how to identify a Stringy Bark.

Elvyne Hogan gave an introduction to the site, outlining work done by the Victoria Gully Group, showing little ones which species of eucalypt that occupied the area lead to funding for a project with Connecting Country through their Yellow Box Woodland program.

Cassia Read then introduced the children and adults to the Cherry Ballart and collected insect galls which shortly afterwards became bush creatures with the addition of feathers, leaves and sticks found on site. After a snack and cuppa the children were encouraged to find some ‘habitat’, a big word when you’re four, for their creatures.

Kids and adults enjoyed the bush and company of other like minded families.

A lichen that Cassia pointed out on the walk back.

On the return walk Cassia contiuned to share her knowlege about the plant and moss species found in the reserve.

Thanks to Elvyne and Cassia for their time in presenting to our small people and their families.

(Click on photos below to enlarge.)

Long-leaved Box E. Goniocalyx is now in flower in our region. It generally flowers from March to May. The following photos of the buds, blossom and fruit of a Long-leaved Box at the summit of Mount Tarrengower were taken on 31 March.  (click to enlarge)

At the farewell event for Doug Ralph in the Castlemaine Botanic Gardens early last month Phil Ingamells gave a speech about Doug’s contribution to the environment movement in this region. Phil who lived in Castlemaine in the late 1990s was a good friend of Doug’s and one of the founding members of FOBIF. Phil now resides in Melbourne and works for the Victorian National Parks Association (VNPA) on their Park Protection Project. One of his memories was about Doug’s part in the re-routing of the Calder Freeway:

There are many stories that could be told about Doug’s endeavours, but I’d like to tell just one. When the Calder freeway’s Taradale bypass was being planned, Doug got wind that it would plough through a small but valuable native woodland on private land. He quickly got a few people together to speak at the planners’ public hearings.

Now, as you drive towards Melbourne, you’ll come to a point where the freeway flies over the Taradale Metcalfe road. Shortly after that, as it starts to bend to the left, you can see eucalypts poking up between the two sides of the freeway. They mark a wildlife corridor between that private land on the western side and another woodland to the east. The freeway then follows a long swooping curve, leaving the threatened woodland very much intact.

Whenever I go that way, I think of it as Doug’s bend.

If you missed Doug’s farewell you can now read the full text of the speech that Phil made here.