2030: Will we make it?

8 April 2021

The Antarctic ice shelves are getting ready to break away .... in about 30 years. We’re locked into the worst of the IPCC’s four climate warming scenarios. Tipping $10 billion of his ill-gotten gains into an Earth Fund, Amazon chief executive Bezos wants to spend it all in 10 years. It’s now or never. Ten years to reverse our slide into catastrophe. 

At Riddells Creek Landcare, our budget is more modest, and consists almost entirely of our voluntary labour. Where is that time going? We protect the 120 hectares of bush at the top of Gap Road called Barrm Birrm, place of many yam roots. And the good news is that more and more Riddell residents are walking there, enjoying this gorgeous hill country. 

Our annual Clean Up Australia Day event in Barrm Birrm turned up the lowest amount of rubbish ever, and 6 year old Lhasa got his certificate for helping out. Those of you walking through Barrm Birrm are taking care of the place, picking up rubbish as you come across it. Even the party sites near the dam were clear of cans and bottles, a wonderful change from the old ‘dumping ground’ mentality.

 

In 2020, the Shire put up signs saying that Barrm Birrm is private land, and valuable vegetation. Amazingly, the flood of 4WDs and trail bikes has eased up. That’s good, but there’s a slow increase of people camping illegally. Camping has a devastating effect, stripping away delicate grasses and exposing the surface to erosion.

We now need a regular round of working bees to cut back the exotic acacias threatening to overpower the local ecosystem. Trees like Cootamundra and Sallow Wattle shade out the local grasses; gorse, blackberry and bluebell creeper all need attention. It’s not difficult work, but we want you to help us.

On the grasslands that fringe Riddells Creek, our group is using satellite photos to track and record the loss of Woody Grasslands, an endangered ecosystem. The Shire should be paying attention to any change in the way a grassland is used, but this hasn’t been happening, and we want to bring areas at risk to the attention of owners and the Shire.

And last, we connect our members to educational events where they learn how to look after their properties, and learn about the local flora and fauna. Drop me a line and you can join in too.

These are all small actions, but think of them as the next step, like this keyline in a dry hillside. It was put in in anticipation of rain. It was the next step. Just take the next step.

Wanna dance with somebody

4 March 2021

The crowd is bouncing up and down, arms waving, singing along. The band can’t quite believe they’re playing live in front of a crowd, and we can’t believe it either. 

It’s delicious being up and out after so many months of Covid, exhilarating, like when you’ve been really sick and then one day, you feel well. We’re being normal. We’re dancing!

Maldon gets its boogie on!

 

I’m in the main street of Maldon, set out with tables and chairs, for the annual Maldon street dinner. Around 600 people have worked their way through the picnic boxes and run the bar dry, and now ‘The Best 80s Band’ is cutting loose. I didn’t know I knew these songs, but my body does. We’re deep into Whitney Houston, 1987: ‘I want to dance with somebody, wanna feel the heat with somebody, ooo ooooo, wanna dance with somebody.'

So here’s the thing—the town organises this night themselves. They organise the tables and chairs, and the liquor licence, the picnic boxes, and the covid safe check in. They talk to the local constabulary, but they don’t ask the Shire for permission. They just take over the street, and about a third of the town’s population show up.

Nice work Maldon! 

We have our Farmers Market, and the Lions playground, but I did wonder whether we’re too cautious and suburban to take possession of our own town.

Earlier that same Saturday, I was standing in the Main Drain, Murnong Creek, the concrete culvert between the Mechanics Institute and the playground. We were on a Saturday walk around the town thinking about traffic and the centre of Riddell, and we finished our walk here, in the Creek.

L to R: Narelle McGellin, her daughter, Jenny Ground, Julie Macdonald

It was quiet down there in the creek. You can’t see cars driving past, in fact, it’s the only place in the centre of Riddell where you can’t see cars. And it suddenly struck me: how amazing would this be as a place to hang out? There we are standing with Narelle, who has made the Lions playground happen because she thought it was needed, and it would be a cool thing to do.

What if the back end of the Mechanics Institute opened onto the creek, and you could sit in the northern sun? How much work would it take to put a few levels into the slope, with paths back into the pedestrian network? Planting that suited the creek. A place to dance on a summer night.

Moonee Ponds creek is being redesigned for flood control and biodiversity and recreational space. Bendigo Creek is opening to the city, not being kept shut away from it. Perth is turning drains and stormwater retention basins into wetlands and parks.

Why not our creek? 

Ross Colliver
Riddells Creek Landcare

 

 

Take it easy driver!

16 February 2021

 It’s been busy up here on the dirt end of Gap Road.

Residents, tradies, curious tourists in shiny new 4WDs all negotiate a narrow road as it heads up into the range and on to Cherokee. For those of you who don’t have reason to use Gap Road often, here’s an up-date.

A driver heading down Gap Road rolled his 4WD in spectacular fashion late January, hurrying home after a few drinks. The corner at 385 Gap Road is well-banked and engenders confidence, but the next corner is flat and loose. The driver slid, over-corrected and flipped nose to tail. Somehow managed to exit the scene before the constabulary appeared.

 

That makes the second rollover for this stretch of Gap Road in the last year, after another enthusiastic driver gunned his Holden Astra through a dip in the road just after the flat corner. He was airlifted to Melbourne.

The slaughter of roos has eased up in the last three months, which is a relief because we had eight killed on this stretch through 2020. Not all died straight away—a roo with two broken legs found on my early morning walk had to be put down by Macedon Ranges Wildlife Rescue. 

A few months on the job with the Wildlife Rescue would make a good community service order for Gap Road speedsters. Sue, the volunteer who actually is the Wildlife Rescue,would welcome anything that gets it through people’s heads that they’re not the only animals out at night. Take it easy driver!

A speed limit of 100 kmh doesn’t send the right signal. One of our Landcare members ran a petition last year to reduce the limit on Gap Road to 60 kmh, which I took to be an ambit claim, but when I actually kept my eye on the speedo, 60 kmh was comfortable most of the way and 70 kmh felt like a reasonable limit.

Heading down the bitumen from Royal Parade, walkers are out at all hours, and there’s a regular roo crossing late afternoon and evening around the 80 kmh sign. Gap Road is not a deserted country road. So take it easy driver.

Roo killed near the 89 kmh sign on Gap Road

Ross Colliver
Riddells Creek Landcare

The weedy season

20 January 2021

I'm down in my bit of Sandy Creek, doing what has to be done with the summer weeds.

I've been able to avoid it till January, because of the wet weather. With all that dampness, and coolness, the thistles are late to flower, and I've put it off and put it off, until .... oh bugger it, if I don't get those thistles before they seed, I'll lose the ground I've been gaining on them over the last few years.

So here I am with my mattock, to lift out the thistle roots with the narrow end, and secateurs and chicken feed bag to stash the thistle heads that are too far advanced to risk leaving them in the open air. The carcasses I stack to be hauled away to the burning pile. 

There's blackberry too, growing briskly after all that rain, gorse of course, re-sprouting, and something I haven't noticed before that looks decidedly non-native, a kissing cousin I'm sure to the water-loving weed I've been targeting around the house this summer. Some serious attention from the mattock and I've cleaned out two clumps.

There are fewer weeds than last year, and fewer than five years ago. Dean Platt, the ecologist who first inspected my place and put me into the Melbourne Water Stream Frontage program, said at the time: 

"We just have to tip the balance in favour of the natives, and they will take over the territory."

The first three years of spaying changed a creek covered in blackberry to this sunlight gully of bracken and the sweet bursaria in bloom now on the northern side of the creek. 

All the creek asks of me now is this annual sweep to discourage the bad guys. 

Then it stays here, from summer into winter and rolling back to summer, living out its life. Any season and any time of the day, I can walk down to another world.

Ross Colliver
Riddells Creek Landcare