Category: 2014 Autumn Newsletter

Have you heard about the ambitious scheme to build a world class museum and botanic garden in Halls Gap to celebrate wildlife art? “WAMA is a visionary concept. It is a project of national importance that will recognise the works of outstanding Australian wildlife and natural history artists. Their artistic work will be displayed in an iconic purpose built gallery set in native botanical gardens and wetlands in the foothills of the spectacular Grampian ranges in Victoria.”

They have a large site on the Halls Gap Pomonal Rd, an energetic committee of artists, conservationists and business people seeking more funding and support. Work has already started on planning the garden, with Master’s students from the University of Melbourne working on concept plans for the site under the supervision of their professors. More information is available from http://www.wama.net.au/ or email .

FOGGS have not been asked for support, but some of our members are heavily involved, and I am sure many of us will be very interested in seeing its progress.

This year will celebrate 20 years of operation with a tour of past works and a celebratory dinner to be held in early October.

This years Plantout will involve four community plantings, four schools plantings and one corporate/group plantings. The community plantings will again be held through the months of July, where local and visiting volunteers will be encouraged to come along and lend a hand. The planting activities will again be themed with the aim of involving a wide range of volunteers in this important work. The first to kick off will be a site near Pomonal on Saturday 5th of July, where volunteers will plant 2,500 plants. With assistance from Jallukar Landcare Group in hosting the planting day, backpackers and other visitors to Halls Gap will be encouraged to come along and help, with a minibus running from the YHA.

The Grampians to Pyrenees Biolink Project continues again this year with funding received from the Australian Government which was announced late last year. The next phase of the project is more targeted with works confined to specific geographical areas between the Grampians and Pyrenees Ranges. This project will again be delivered in partnership with the Wimmera CMA, but this next phase has brought in other partners including Glenelg Hopkins CMA, Parks Victoria, Trust for Nature, Conservation Volunteers Australia and Central Victorian Biolinks Group.

The project will work with private landholders to fence remnant vegetation, including that on waterways, strategically-selected areas of land will undergo revegetation and large areas of public land will have increased rabbit and weed management works to reduce the risk of the improved connectivity contributing to the spread of these species. The Grampians to Pyrenees Biolink is a significant link between two major visionary Bio-links ‘Habitat 141’ which straddles the Victorian/ Southern Australian Border and the ‘Great Eastern Ranges Corridor’ which follows the Great Dividing Range right through to Far North Queensland. It provides habitat through a combination of stepping stones and wildlife corridors enabling ecological function to be maintained through a myriad of farmland and public conservation areas. An exciting component of this project is to develop a 10 year strategic Grampians to Pyrenees Connectivity Plan which will further refine priority works and areas to assist in achieving the aim of “improving the ecological connectivity between the Grampians and Pyrenees Ranges”. It has been well recognised that this plan will need to optimise ecological needs while considering farming and community priorities.

More information: 03 5358 4410

By J. W. AUDAS, F.L.S., F.R.M.S., Assistant, National Herbarium, Melbourne.

(Read before the Field Naturalist’s Club of Victoria, 15th Jan., 1919.)

In our last few issues we have been publishing Audas’s description of a Spring excursion to Halls Gap. We conclude his story as they do the last leg of their 2 day walk. Please note that the botanical names are sometimes hard to decipher. The library who have made this available on the web has used character recognition software to get into a text document and it has not always coped with Latin vocabulary. And of course some plant names have changed as well.

Having reached a large, swiftly-flowing creek containing good water, we decided to boil the billy and have lunch, and enjoy a short respite from travelling. Feeling refreshed, we

pushed on and negotiated a high ridge, from the top of which a splendid view of the Victoria Valley was obtained. The head waters of the Glenelg River could be traced, running in a northwesterly direction at the start, and finally turning southward after making a circuit of the northern end of the Victoria Range. The principal point of interest from here is the “Asses’ Ears” a bold prominence on the Victoria Range. Continuing from this spot in a northerly direction, some deep and rugged gullies were encountered, the walls of sandstone in some places being almost perpendicular ; however, after much difficult climbing, we eventually reached Scrubby Creek. The vegetation along the creek was very luxuriant. Splendid specimens of Prostanthera lasianthos and Pomaderris apetala attained a height of fully thirty feet, and Pimelea spathulata, an elegant shrub in full bloom, made a very effective display with its pretty heads of drooping greenish flowers. The Acacias, A. melanoxylon, A. verniciflua, and A. retinodes, looked particularly well, the foliage being very regular and ornamental, and of a much lighter shade of green than is usually seen. A great variety of ferns flourished along the banks of the stream ; splendid masses of Gleichenia dicarpa were

observed, and G. flabellata was particularly fine. Todea barbara grew in profusion, and in some places formed close thickets, while Lomaria discolor, L. capensis, Aspidium aculeatum, Pteris incisa, also the tree-fern, Dicksonia antarctica, with its stately heads of fronds, added beauty to the scene. Leaving Scrubby Creek, we soon struck the track we were in search of, and started on our homeward journey. Proceeding now under more comfortable circumstances, along the track was seen a nice display of Brachycome diversifolia growing in a grassy flat, and gleaming gold and white in the sunlight. It was noted that in this particular part of the mountains Grevillea alpina and Styphelia adscendens assumed trailing Jorms. Journeying along the slopes of Mount Difficult, Burchardia umbellata, Helichrysum apicilatum, and H. Baxteri were met with in great profusion. The beautifully cerulean blue flowers of Brunonia australis made a splendid show.

Under cultivation this plant should make an uncommon and very pretty border. As the day was bright and sunny, Thelymitra antennifera (one of the sun orchids) was showing to the best advantage. Passing the saddle on Mount Difificult and descending towards Hall’s Gap, nice clumps of Euphrasia collina (a graceful flower, varying in shades from white to deep lavender), Stylidium graminifolium (with long spikes of magenta flowers). Patersonia longiscapa (with rich purple blooms), Hibbertia densiflora (with yellow blossoms), and Dianella revoluta (with bluish flowers) presented a charming effect with the blending of the various colours.

After this long and interesting trip through partly unknown country, and having covered about thirty-five miles of rough, trackless parts in the two days, we arrived home safely, heavily laden with specimens collected and highly pleased with the results of our undertaking.

The agenda items for the roundtable all focused on the January fires. DEPI, CFA, Parks and Local government perspectives were all discussed.

January 15 was the 3^rd day of temperatures above 40⁰ C and thunderstorms had been predicted so all available crews and plant were in full readiness to deal with fires from lightening strikes. The thunderstorms started in the late afternoon. Predictions for 16^th were for extreme weather conditions and although 10 aircraft and the aircrane were attacking several fires by 10 am in the morning, they were not having a great impact because of the already extreme weather conditions. Two fires in the southern Grampians and one of the northern fires were put out by ground crews but a couple of the northern ones in more remote locations were unable to be put out and it was unsafe to drop crews in to fight them. Fires in the Mallee and other areas across the state meant that limited resources were available to help us. The two northern fires joined up and rapidly spread. With Friday 17^th predicted to be close to a code red day and the Phoenix model showing the fire could reach Halls Gap by Friday night, Parks staff spent Thursday visiting camp grounds to evacuate people and Halls Gap people were advised to evacuate. Fortunately the wind change predicted for Friday came early and the fire did not reach Halls Gap. Weather conditions over the weekend eased and a lot of back burning and work was done to contain the fire by the 20^th. It took several weeks for crews to mop up and declare the fire out, in this time we had more severe fire warning days and events which brought crowds to Halls Gap, causing worrying times for fire managers.

Dave Roberts outlined the asset losses and recovery plans as described in the Advisory Group article. Some key points Graeme Parkes mentioned in his summing up of our meeting were:-

• Landscape fires seem to becoming a common occurrence

• The importance of local knowledge and community centres e.g Brimpaen

• Collaboration between organisations has become stronger but there is always room for improvement

• Need for collaboration between public and private landholders on fuel management.

• 3 major fire events in past 8 years is it something that is changing or do we need to change.