Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

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.

The FOBIF AGM will be held on Monday July 27 at 7.30 pm at the Ray Bradfield Rooms, beside Victory Park Castlemaine.

The guest speaker will be Sarah Lloyd, author of the remarkable book, Where the slime mould creeps, a guide to common–and strangely beautiful–life forms you never even knew existed. Put it in the diary!

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!

Mount Alexander Shire has released a draft Environment Strategy 2015-2025 for public comment. The draft can be found here

FOBIF will be making a brief submission on the draft, and urges members to do likewise. At first sight, the document looks fatally infected with woolly jargon [‘The overarching challenge is to move from an exploitative relationship with our planet to a symbiotic one, both in spirit and action’] and grandiose aims [‘Environmentalism and sustainability become mainstream’], and weak on specifics—but we’ll be making a perhaps more considered response to the draft by the closing date of May 14.

Stinkwort on the Colles Rd footpath: there are outbreaks on major and minor roads in the region, and they look as if they’ve been spread by machinery.

Here’s an illustration of the way in which nice but vague aims can give the impression you’re doing one thing, when in fact you may be doing the opposite: residents may have noticed outbreaks of the noxious weed Stinkwort on many of our roadsides and tracks: Forest Creek Track in Chewton, Colles road footpath, Midland Highway, Vaughan Springs road, and Joseph Young Drive on Mt Alexander among them. These outbreaks look suspiciously as if they come from road maintenance machinery, and some of them look like Council responsibility. This has happened at least once before, when Council machines spread the weed around newly landscaped areas in the Wesley Hill industrial estate, then had to go back and eradicate it.

A check of the Shire’s Roadside Conservation Management Plan 2012-17 shows the following aims:

• ‘Improve conservation values and connectedness of roadsides to bushlands and adjacent farms.
• ‘Reduce fuel for fire and increase bushfire preparedness consistent with recommendations of Royal Commission into the Black Saturday Fires.
• ‘Reduce feral animals and control the spread of existing weeds and avoid outbreak of new weed species on roadsides.’

These laudable aims are unfortunately not backed by a more modest and practical one: ‘clean Council machinery, so that Council does not inadvertently spread weeds instead of controlling them.’ Simple [though tiresome] procedures have long existed for this, and are urged by Federal authorities as a way of limiting the $4 billion we lose every year through weed infestations.

If enough submissions make the point clearly, the Shire’s Environment Strategy might be made much tighter and more practical. Submissions are easy to make at the Shire’s link above. Have a go!

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.)