Category: Miscellaneous Snippet

Sisters Rocks handed back to Traditional Owners

SISTERS ROCKS

One of Stawell’s natural landmarks is set to change hands after the Northern Grampians Shire Council moved to return the Sisters Rock site to traditional owners at their April meeting on Monday.

The council voted to move and accept the recommendation to transfer the Sisters Rocks site to the Victorian Government, who will then decide the appropriate public body to determine the management arrangements and associated funding for the land.

As part of the process the council also had the assurance that the transfer of ownership will not affect the Western Highway Duplication (Ararat to Stawell) project.

“From the Council’s perspective it would be a powerful act of reconciliation that we can perform on behalf of the community in recognising indigenous culture”.

The land will be returned to the WJJWJ Peoples as part of the Traditional Owners Settlement Act 2010 (Vic) (TOS Act).

Sisters Rocks are a culturally … Read the rest

Miscellaneous Reports

There is a new update on the Victorian Deer Management Strategy project. Submissions on a draft Victorian Deer Management Strategy were sought in October 2018. 666 public submissions were received. The final Strategy and a Consultation Report is now available at: https://engage.vic.gov.au/draft-victorian-deer-man…

The Grampians Fire Online Conference is also available on line. https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/a6ee473b-5574-4d54-ad8b-c8833279af70. Two highlights of the presentation were:

  1. The case study into the Mt Lang bushfire in December 2019, with some great photography and a good summary of the activity of the fire.
  2. The Wartook Community Bushfire Strategy Development.
… Read the rest

Grampians Rail Trail

There is now a bike path from Stawell to the Grampians following the old route of the train line that carried stone from Heatherlie Quarry to Stawell and thence to Melbourne. It doesn’t actually go into the park but does go through the Illawarra Fauna and Flora Reserve then joins the Mt Dryden Rd. A hard working volunteer group in Stawell has put a lot of work into this and the views towards the mountains must be very rewarding.

Maps are available at www.railtrails.org.au.… Read the rest

Farewell And Thanks Dave Handscombe

Dave is probably the ranger FOGGS has had most contact with over the years. Starting on 4th January 1982 with the Forest Commission as a technical assistant with the School of Forestry and Land Management in Creswick, Dave did four and a half years before being seconded to the Alpine Planning Team to work on the proposed Alpine National Park.  In 1988 Dave transferred to Mt Buffalo working as a technical assistant (a.k.a. Ranger) focused on campgrounds and patrols including cross country ski patrols.  In 1989 Dave got offered the job as the Dunkeld Ranger in the Grampians.  ‘Unfortunately’ the job offer was just too late into Winter and the removalist truck couldn’t get into Mt Buffalo because of the snow so he was ‘forced’ to do another snow season on ski patrol.  Dave then got offered the Walking Track Ranger position based in Halls Gap and has worked in … Read the rest

Grampians Rock Art In The News

EXCERPTS FROM AN ARTICLE IN THE AGE JAN 13

The AGE had a long and chatty article on a fascinating newly discovered art site. It is far too long to copy here, but I do recommend that you read it on line – The Age

Or you can contact me (Margo) and I can send it to you.  It is the need to protect valuable sites like this one that makes it so important to educate rock climbers, and where necessary ban some sites.

‘Now the legendary bunyip has been found – or ancient rock drawings of it at least – in a shallow cave atop a cliff in the Mt Difficult Range. Four bunyips, to be precise, lurking in a sandstone shelter on an outcrop that commands sweeping views of the plains of north-western Victoria.

It was a find that would shine new light on an age-old story – … Read the rest

Nature Glenelg Trust News

The Upper Wannon River floodplain is adjacent to the Grampians National Park in western Victoria. A large proportion of this floodplain was drained from the 1950s for agriculture and later converted to a Tasmanian Blue Gum plantation forest. Nature Glenelg Trust (NGT) has been progressively working to restore the wetlands of the floodplain across public and private land, with successful permanent works now completed at Brady Swamp and Gooseneck Swamp in the Grampians National Park.

A recently awarded Victorian Government Climate Change Innovation Grant (via DELWP) is funding major on-ground works over the next two years that will see Walker Swamp transformed into a community demonstration site for sustainable floodplain restoration and management; by removing the plantations and reversing artificial drainage across the more than 440 hectares of land now owned by Nature Glenelg Trust.

These activities will restore natural river floodplain function, recreating wetland habitats for threatened and iconic … Read the rest

Tourism Update

Visitor numbers in the Grampians continue to increase, for better and for worse. 

The number of visitors visiting the Grampians increased in the past year by 15.7 per cent, with 931,000 visitors travelling to the Grampians between March 2017 and March 2018. 

The amount of expenditure in the Grampians has also significantly increased in the past year. 

Visitors spent 2,367,000 nights in the Grampians from March 2017 to March 2018 – a 26.6 per cent increase from 2016 to 2017. 

Grampians Tourism chief executive Marc Sleeman said the growth in tourist numbers and expenditure was ahead of both state and national averages. 

“It’s an amazing result for our region,” he said. 

“Our new multi-tactical marketing campaigns are working to increase visitor numbers, dispersing visitors across our entire region and importantly they are staying longer and spending more.” 

The marketing campaign includes promoting the Grampians region all year, as well as … Read the rest

Parkconnect

As reported in the last newsletter, Parks Vic is encouraging us all to  register to become an official Parks Victoria volunteer by creating a user account and volunteer profile with details about your interests, skills, and contact information.

It is a way of registering special skills, interests and qualifications so they can contact us for activities etc and keeps track of paperwork such as accredited chainsaw training and working with children checks.

We can use it too to look for volunteer activities in other parks. Should be useful when on holidays.

It’s quite easy to register. You need to create a profile and a password of course.

Register now at Parks Victoria

… Read the rest

Snippets from Here and There

Cavendish RED GUM Festival

Three of us manned a stand at the festival featuring our FOGG Red Gum walk in the Victoria valley with posters, an A3 book on the history of our walk, and copies of the new Park booklet on walks for the less-abled . Despite the appalling weather and our subsequent relocation to the fringe of town we had quite a bit of interest. There were quite a few other environmental groups also involved and the day was a real success. Fogg member Jacqueline Ridler performed a poem celebrating red gums which I have permission to show.

Brothers in Arms

Old Man Redgum, if tales that you could tell,
Of a time before the white man, where thousands of you dwelled,
When your limbs reached out beside you and caressed your brothers’ hands.

Now you look so lonely, yet still strong, robust and grand,
The story tells … Read the rest

Red Gum Festival

www.facebook.com/CelebratingRedGums

The Cavendish Community are very excited to be hosting the inaugural Red Gum Festival from the 13th -15th April 2018. As part of the event, they are aiming to provide the local community and visitors with a broad range of red gum and environmental related information, advice, opportunities and the chance to connect with relevant groups and organisations.

They have invited FOGG to participate and we will be contributing something about the history of our Red Gum Walk.… Read the rest

Friends of Grampians Gariwerd