NGT Out and about — Photos from the field in May
In the spirit of National Volunteers Week – we’ve had a fantastic group of geocachers out at Walkers Swamp. The group was nearly 40 people strong. This isn’t the first time they’ve been here, and they say they love it! They come from all over Victoria and even further afield. They meet close by (looking for geocaches on the way), and stop at places like Walker Swamp to volunteer. They then headed to Halls Gap where they stayed, while working on other community projects for the rest of the weekend.
They helped us cut the fence from posts and droppers – a time-consuming task as the fence isn’t old – and was well built!! The posts & wire will be re-used in other sites, so we didn’t want to make a mess of the job. This is the fence on the eastern side of the northern section of Walker’s Swamp. Long-term NGT volunteer Andy went in to prepare before they came, removing tree limbs from the fence. While one group removed fences, the other group collected the old tree guards & stakes in the fenced-off area – a massive job so well done team!
Their time and effort was much appreciated. What a wonderful, hardworking group – and full of smiles!
Students from the Independent Learning Center (ILC) have been regular visitors to the Mt Gambier Community Nursery over the last few weeks. Recently, they have been making wire guards for Eaglehawk Waterhole, and they were also joined by NGT’s resident volunteer caretaker at Eaglehawk, Andy Lines. Over 50 guards have been made from recycled wire mesh. The guards will be used to help trees such as Buloke grow tall and strong, protected from grazing animals. Thank you!
NGT senior ecologists Lachie and Ayesha have been out looking at a potential new project on farming country with our work experience student Henry from Brauer College. They visited a farm west of Hamilton to look at a wetland in need of restoration, and collected level measurements – below is a photo of them teaching Henry how to use the level. The landholder got in touch with NGT through local Landcare – a great example of how farmers, community groups and ecologists can work together and share our knowledge with each other and work with the environment.
