Category: Newsletters

History: Nature in the Serra Range

In our last issue we published Audas’s description of a Spring excursion on the flat land near Halls Gap. We continue his story on the next morning as they set out for a 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.

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.

Provisioned with food for a couple of days, we made an early start on Sunday morning (3 November) for that portion of the Serra Range lying to the south-west of Hall’s Gap. The first stage of the journey was via the Stony … Read the rest

History: Founding of the Grampians National Park

The latest Parkwatch, the magazine of the Victorian National Parks Association had an article by Evelyn Feller on the founding of the Grampians National Park as part of their celebration of 60 years of activity.

Grampians National Park – A Victorian Icon

1994 : As part of VNPA’s 60th anniversary, Evelyn Feller looks back at the long campaign for a Grampians National Park.

One of the earliest appeals for a Grampians National Park was in a 1912 Argus editorial in response to a deliberately lit fire in the Victoria Valley north of Dunkeld. The editor urged protection for the area before the opportunity was lost. “These things are often neglected or overlooked during the infancy of a country: and then there comes a time, after the land has been alienated, when a lost opportunity is lamented.”

In 1937 the Ararat Shire president Councillor Alex McDonald endorsed a national park … Read the rest

Natural Values News

The Natural Values team are busy looking at the impact of the fire, so we don’t have an article from Ryan. What we do know is that the remote camera work continues to be very useful. It is revealing that cats are an increasing threat to the small critters, and staff and experts are looking the best ways to deal with this. Cinnamon fungus is another problem that has returned after the 2 wet years.

The results of the Museum of Victoria Bioscan  are coming through a little at a time. There are two excellent videos up on Youtube and more to come. The first was a general report, the second focussed on moths of the Grampians: www.youtube.com/user/museumvictoria

In other news, the student studying the diet of deer has just completed her PhD, and we are hoping we can have her talk about her results at a … Read the rest

Grampians Wildflower Show 2013

GRAMPIANS WILDFLOWER SHOW NOT HAPPENING IN HALLS GAP THIS YEAR  – COMMITTEE DECIDES TO MAKE RADICAL CHANGES

The wildflower show committee met early in March to discuss the future of the show.  We had much fun in October celebrating our 75th show and decided that now is an appropriate time to rethink the show, and we will take a year off to do so. Several of our key workers want to retire, and we need to rethink how we do the show. We may have a few activities during that traditional first week of October, but no show in the hall. This way we can make a clear break with our traditional way of doing the show.

We would like to thank the FOGG members from further afield who have contributed so much in the recent years. Without your help the show would have folded before this.

We are … Read the rest

Keep Australia Beautiful Clean Up March

Sunday 3rd March – a fine day for collecting the disposed excess of our overflowing society.

12 Foggies met at the Ian McCann Reserve. This was named after the late Ian, an honorary life member of FOGGS, a chief instigator in the Declaration of the Grampians National Park, and a vocal conscience for Stawell’s environment.

The Reserve itself was a disused block of land on the Pomonal (Lake Fyans Tourist) Road just beyond the town limit. Despite being dug over by miners in the early days of Pleasant Creek, and used as a general rubbish dump by lazy Stawellites, the block still holds a wealth of native vegetation and spring wildflowers. It is a great asset for the people of this area.

With plastic garbage bags the intrepid twelve meandered into the scrub, collecting small rubbish (bricks, bottles, piping and tin cans) and two bicycles, and feeling derogatory towards … Read the rest

Letter to the Editor: Fire Aftermath

Looking south from Reid’s lookout I see the vast burn on the Victoria Range ends in a brown line where it meets the green of the Victoria Valley. This is a role reversal from only a few years ago when the Victoria Range was an island of hopeful green rising from the brown/black devastation of that same valley. At the time, 7years ago, I remember hoping against hope that the Victoria Range would survive as an unburned repository of Grampians ecology.  Now that is has burned through so extensively I wonder how much recovery work will happen in that part of the park. The part that is far more seldom visited by tourists. A part not so vital to the local, state and national economy. A part thus more easily forgotten by the powers that be.

As that is my favourite part, and the area I most often visit from … Read the rest

Weather and Wildfires

It is still so dry here. Looking at the observations for Stawell, there was no rain at all in January, 50mm in February (most of it in one big dump which missed some areas completely), and 3mm by 28th March.  Parts of the Park are looking quite stressed, and hot windy days are scary. Maybe the information on the front page as to the season is incorrect; we are still in Kooyang, late summer, season of eels. A parched landscape with a high risk of bushfires.

With now 85% of the Park having been burnt since 2006, we are hoping that some logic can come into the rigid quota of areas to be burned annually. The next FOP is not yet available for comment. It will be on www.dse.vic.gov.au later.

This map shows the extent of the 2006 and 2013 fires.

2006 and 2013 Fires… Read the rest

From the Park Desk April 2013

Grampians National Park – An Update – David Roberts

Dear Friends of Grampians-Gariwerd,

The Grampians-Gariwerd National Park continues to through up new challenges for our communities, visitors and staff. After a period of recovery post the 2011 floods, the park will now embark on structuring up a recovery program to restore, rehabilitate and monitor the short, medium and long term impacts of another significant bushfire – The Victoria Valley/Victoria Range complex.

This fire grew out of 22+ lightning strikes that hit the park during a 24 hour period on commencing the 14th February 2013. The fire put significant pressure on the Victoria Valley community at Mirranatwa when 4 fires merged and impacted on the park and private property interface. The team work of all the emergency services including CFA Volunteers, DSE, Parks Victoria, Victoria Police and Local Government resulted in only minimal property and asset loss on private property … Read the rest

WIM150 Mineral Sands Project

Australian Zircon had a public viewing of a summary of where the project is up to thus far.

The mine area will be located 1.4 kilometres from the northern edge of the National Park and FOGGs feel there will be impacts on the National Park.

  • The life of the mine will be 25 plus years.
  • The active area at any given time will be around 300 ha.
  • The mining and rehabilitation for any specific area is expected to be less than three years.

FOGGs committee made comments on the scoping study in September last year, and will be looking carefully at the Environment Effects Statement which will be available to the public in a couple of months. It will be a very large document and will be able to be viewed at a few public places, for those who don’t want to print off reams of paper. After its release … Read the rest

Friends of Grampians Gariwerd