We had a great turn up today working in the most beautiful conditions with mainly sunny periods, a little cloud and a perfect temperature. It was so nice we all took a longer morning tea to enjoy beautiful Long Reef and basking in the superb sunshine.
There was a large turn out including 3 new volunteers – one with a lot of bush regenerating experience. Seven of the people worked up on the northern western and western hill side removing bitou. Each month with this great crew, we are able to move further and further west. It was tough work today as they were in a steep gully and the bitou was dense.
Three of us worked on removing the few patches of Asthma weed just off the western side of the track. This area has been superficially tackled a number of times this year, but today was a concerted effort and we probably got about 90% of this horrible weed. Much of it was very difficult to get as it was under shrubs and in woody area.
Acacia myrtifolia, known colloquially as myrtle wattle, is a species of Acacia native to coastal areas of southern and eastern Australia. We planted 7 down the eastern side of the fence line and another 7 further up the slope where there are a number of other well established shrubs.
After morning tea a couple of people targeted the Burr Medic. Being winter, it has only just started to germinate from last year’s seeds. They also cleared an area with a number of clumps of Parramatta grass.
This image shows some of the spinafex on the far eastern side where years ago the bitou was burnt. The spinafex is taking off in a number of places and the area is starting to look really good with very little sand exposed to erosion.