Spirited friends sweep wild bushland setting

RUBBISH bags full of litter, and pine saplings, were removed from Woowookarung Regional Park by Friends of the Canadian Corridor on Sunday morning.

FoCC secretary, Jeff Rootes said many people “still see the bush as a dumping ground.” So much so, that Parks Victoria sends a truck weekly to clear the area of new junk.

Mr Rootes was one of ten volunteers who swept about five hectares of Woowookarung for two hours, picking up lots of very old beer cans and bottles, and removing stray pines.

“A lot of the rubbish was historical. It had been there for a long time. There was a bit of steel, but mostly drink containers and household rubbish,” he said.

“This lump of land is a bit of remnant bush that was in the middle of an old pine plantation… and then a blue gum plantation.

“The blue gum plantation owner decided to hand it back to government. All the seed from the pine trees keeps reseeding, but the pines don’t fit into a regional park, so we have removed about 100 little pines.”

The Friends also mulched around some trees a contractor planted on behalf of the group one month ago.

Volunteers were working on this section of Woowookarung in particular in preparation for FoCC and Ballarat Field Naturalists’ pop-up wildflower walk at the end of the month.

The walk’s aim is to encourage more nearby residents to discover the park as a “grand asset,” engage with it and take a protective, community ownership over it.

“In this area, there’s 20 to 25 different varieties of wildflowers, and we’ll put signs out for a week so people can come and have a look,” Mr Rootes said.

“It’s a dry-land wildflower area, and there’s an amazing array when you dive in. The bush pea is fantastic, but there’s a whole lot of orchids.

“There’s something different every few metres. People can work out what is what, with the help of our signs, and be introduced to the range of wildflowers we have in this park.”

There are about 700 Friends of the Canadian Corridor, but this working bee was limited due to Parks Victoria and the State’s COVID-19 guidelines.

“The best way to protect our wild bushland setting is to get people into it who will look after it.

“There are people who live around the park who do this clean-up every week. They walk and take a rubbish bag for litter, and the park is better off for it,” Mr Rootes said.

“There’s a wonderful, community spirit.”