Speaking out

14 December 2020

When I’m parking opposite the supermarket, I get anxious. So far, I haven’t backed out over a human being, or into a 4WD coming up Station Street. But every time, I take it very steadily.

And every time I walk from the supermarket across Sutherlands Road, then Main Road to the PO, I notice how much traffic there is. Five years ago, you could park outside the PO, and that was it. But not now.

The Shire has $60,000 earmarked for a Traffic Study of Riddell’s town centre. I wonder if the consultants will talk to those who live here and use the traffic system as drivers, walkers and riders. The Shire’s draft policy on community engagement suggests they should.

The typical set up for engagement has been that Council works out the options and takes them to the people for their opinion. Then it disappears, crunches the data, and reappears with a decision.

For movement of people and vehicles in Riddell, I think we can do better than that. What’s working and not working? We need discussion between drivers, walkers and riders, and with the traders.

This is ‘co-design’ – the people affected by an issue are part of developing the options. Managing traffic is a start, but how does that fit with places to sit, places to meet and talk, access to the Railway Station and light industrial area down Sutherlands Road, and access to the Lions Park and through to the school?

If we talk about this early, a technical study can test out the options, and it will be money well spent. But without that discussion, we get a car solution that doesn’t work for all the other things we want in the heart of Riddell. We’re growing fast – we need to get this sorted! 

So if you get anxious on Station St, or worry what the increasing density of traffic will do to Riddell, write to the CEO of MRSC and ask the Shire how they plan to go about their traffic study. 

Ross Colliver, Riddells Creek Landcare
December 2020

Creek Stories

Riddells Creek. Photo Credit: Robin Godfrey

13 November 2020

I’m jealous. Here as the centrefold of the Gisborne Gazette is a double page feature titled: “Fond Memories of the Queen of the Skies“. Yes, the big fat jumbo, the 747, is being retired, and here are stories from former pilots, engineers and cabin staff about their experiences with that aircraft.

Gisborne, and Riddell for that matter, were towns where airline and airport pilots lived, and their love of the 747 shines through. It’s a fine piece of journalism of the local kind, telling stories that connect older residents and new to the history of the place, and celebrating the lives that have made our towns.

Turning the page, blow me down if there isn’t another full page on the 747! Then on to ‘Kids Corner’ for three pages, then Pets and then at last, ‘Green Thumbs.’ Yes! It’s the environment and garden double page, and there in the bottom right corner is the first instalment of Creek Stories, a project I’ve been labouring over for months now, finally in print.

Creek Stories (www.creekstories.net) are stories about creeks and the people looking after them. It’s a project of the environment groups of Riddell, Gisborne and Macedon, in what’s known as the Jacksons Creek catchment, at the top of the Maribyrnong River.

Like the 747, creeks are lovely things, and like the 747, then need a lot of looking after. Creek Stories celebrates the people who put in their time voluntarily to look after their local creek. Their efforts benefit the plants and animals that live in the creek, and the humans who retreat to the creek for the solace of moving water and the spacious soundscape of a healthy creek.

Creek Stories is signpost to our local creeks, and a celebration of the people who keep them healthy. One day, we might find these stories splashed across the double page centrefold of the Gazette, but in the meantime, the bottom right-hand corner of Green Thumbs is a good start.

Ross Colliver, Riddells Creek Landcare

At the foot of the stairs

September 2020

At the foot of the stairs, on the way to the shed, or taking something out to the car, I step into a scent that’s spicy, warm, transporting. A cloud of memory. The boronia is flowering. It’s the first flowering since I planted it here on the east side of the house near the back steps, where I figured it would get enough sun, but not too much, and I could keep it damp, because boronia comes from the wet forests of Noongah country, in the damp south of the south west of Western Australia.

Alice is delighted: that’s where she lived her first four years. When I moved to Perth in 1975, the men from the south still arrived in Hay Street Mall in Spring, their buckets full of dark brown boronia, selling to the city people. That heady scent was a sign that the cold time was passing and the hot time was coming.

Alice went looking for the Noongah word for boronia. She didn’t find a direct translation but she did learn that for people of the south, boronia was a marker for the arrival of the season known as camberang. The other markers are baby swans, and dugites and tiger snakes out in the sunshine but still dozy from winter, so take it easy, hey? 

Here in Riddell, what are our markers for Springtime?

It’s the time of rain and sunshine.

The time of wearing only two layers sometimes
The time of the appearance of bare arms.
The time of the dawn chorus of symphonic proportions.
The time of the grunting koala.

The time when you look to the hills, and wonder what summer will bring this year.

But I wasn’t going to be gloomy. The scent of the boronia is a wonder, and to have it at the back door, a joy. Bring on those sunny days!

Ross Colliver, Riddells Creek Landcare

Country living

September 2020

The barricades went up this week at Barrm Birrm. MRSC Operations laid great thumping trunks of trees across the entry tracks, along with signs stating plainly: ‘Private Property’. Even before the crew was done, a 4WD pushed through light scrub on Gap Road to avoid the blocked access, and runs the dogs there - him driving, dogs running behind. ‘Hey, what are you doing, that’s illegal?!’ yells a passing walker, as he flattens saplings.

 

Prince of Wales Terrace on the north end remained open, and the trail bikes in any case found the tree trunks no impediment. Saturday, then again on Sunday, bikes spent three hours tooling around the slopes, carving their tracks and turning up the clay ready to be washed downhill next rainfall. A regular weekend for them.

The Operations Crew were back Monday morning, lifting out the logs they had mistakenly placed across Princess St and Prince Albert St. These are gazetted roads, and Council must keep them open to the public. This obligation doesn’t extend to maintaining the roads, nor yet to blocking the tracks running up and down the slope.

What’s next? A trail bike for Senior Constable Johnson? Surveillance cameras, with Shire Local Laws staff dropping in for a quiet word to trespassers? Education, public shaming or legal action? 

There are no obvious solutions here. 

Bring your trifocals to Barrm Birrm, first, a fine-grained lens to enjoy the small glories unfolding as winter lightens up and spring sneaks in, a second lens to see the damage being done, and a third to see, behind it all, the struggle to control intemperate youth and cultivate a deeper care.

Riddells Landcare cleans up after the adolescents and patiently explains – ‘This is a fragile hillside, and you’re damaging it.’ But any reason to walk into Barrm Birrm is a good reason. Days of showers and sunshine now, the bright purples of hardenbergia coming through and wattles bursting overhead. Bracing air. The distant wail of chainsaws, and a plume of mud and stones as a trail bike roars past. 

Real country living!

Ross Colliver, Riddells Creek Landcare

The Riddells Creek Rodeo

August 2020

Senior Constable Johnson stands in the courtyard of my house, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a great deal of equipment. The wind is strong and the first flecks of rain are coming, but he is unperturbed. He’s telling me about his discussions with the Shire about trespassing on the land across the road, Barrm Birrm, the place of many yam daises. Signs and gates are suggested.

I’d phoned the police earlier, concerned about the amount of activity over the weekend. The 4WDs and trail bikes had been busy, an incessant wail and grind floating down the valley. I had ignored it, what can you do? But out walking Monday morning, I was troubled to see the tracks chewed up. Trees felled. There was a cluster of swags camped out near the dam, party boys sleeping it off.

In the next big rain, the clay will erode the tracks just that little bit deeper, washing clay into the road, then down to Sandy Creek. More 4WDs and trail bikes are showing up. We’re closer to the big city. The young men (mostly) are striking out from the asphalt and concrete, hungry for adventure and for something that stretches them and brings a sense of potency. I don’t begrudge them that, and the roads and tracks of Barrm Birrm must be fun, if that’s your thing.

But there’s another part to being in the bush, and that’s care for the land. Do we build a fence and lock the gate, and keep this for walkers? Do we keep horses out, so we don’t get weeds? Do we welcome mountain bikes but not trail bikes? What do we as a community, with our different interests, want for this place?

Without decisive action from residents and the Shire, the land will slowly and sadly degrade.

Ross Colliver, Riddells Creek Landcare