Opportunities in October working bee
We certainly had plenty of opportunities to hone our weeding, painting and building skills this working bee.
The week started off with glorious weather. Once everyone was settled in and we had our briefing, cake supplied by Ranger Fee (thanks Fee), we were off. For the next two days there was plenty of weeding done around Coles Bay, Swanwick and Bicheno. Unfortunately, quite a few of the plants we were removing from within the National Park and the reserves were garden escapees. Of course, we still had our normal culprits to deal with – gorse at Swanwick, great mullein and sea spurge near Bicheno, and combing all areas for sweet pittosporum and removing plenty of seedlings.
By Wednesday the weather started closing in. Some of the vollies stayed in the workshop with Ranger Dan creating lids for the campground fire-pits at River and Rocks and Middle Bank. When the ‘no fires’ season commences these lids will be placed over the fire-pits. The rest of the vollies then headed off with Fee to River and Rocks and Middle Bank campgrounds to clean out the fire-pits of ash and rubbish and complete general maintenance of the area before the start of the summer season. There were a few interesting finds too while they were scanning the surrounding areas.
Mid-morning Thursday saw the rain settling, so all tasks moved indoors. While the fire-pit lids were finished being made, painting became the order of the day for the rest of the vollies. Into one of the PWS houses went one group taking paint and brushes and they spent the day painting various internal spaces and doing general maintenance within. The rest, along with Ranger Ted, commenced painting the fire-pit lids. As rain was forecast to continue through Friday, a small contingent stayed on to complete the tasks, while the the rest returned home on Thursday.
Ranger Ted assisting with the painting and the completed fire-pit lids.
A huge thank you to Rangers Fee, Steve E, Dan and Steve W and Ted, and of course, all the participating vollies for another very productive (despite the weather) week.
Most of the group at the Douglas-Apsley waterhole