Talking about Discovery Bay Wetlands at the inaugural Road 2 River Festival in Nelson

Talking about Discovery Bay Wetlands at the inaugural Road 2 River Festival in Nelson

Last Saturday the 18th March 2016, saw the inaugural Road 2 River Festival kick off in Nelson.

As well as a wide range of market stalls, boat cruises, whale boat races, a car display, food options and live music, NGT also hosted a short series of three Nature Talks on the banks of the River, where 55 people gathered to learn a bit more about the coastal and river environment around Nelson.

An excellent crowd of over 50 people gathered for the NGT hosted Nature Talks at the Road 2 River Festival in Nelson on Saturday the 18th March, 2016.

First up, Mark explained how the wetlands of Discovery Bay (both in SA and Victoria) interact with the Glenelg River estuary, including a series of changes that were made to the water flows in the early 1900s. He then touched on the progress of restoration projects in both states over the past 15 years that have sought to restore their condition, with fantastic results.

If you are interested to learn more about this story, you can download a copy of the brochure Mark provided to the audience, by following this link: NGT Information Article – Discovery Bay Wetlands – R2R Nelson Festival – March 2016.

Then Lauren Veale (also from NGT) spoke briefly about her important research work into Mulloway, then inviting people to see how she extracts the “jewels” from the skull off a filleted Mulloway frame (which are used to age the fish) after the talks.

Finally, Brett from Nelson Boat and Canoe Hire gave a few insights into successful lure fishing in the Glenelg, and explained why you might choose to consider trying lure fishing rather than using live bait.

Thanks to the Nelson community for putting on a great event – hopefully the first of many to come over the years ahead.

The Introduction page from the handout notes given the the audience in Nelson. The full brochure can be downloaded as a pdf file using the link in the article above.

Mark Bachmann