May 4th week

 Hewitts Creek Before A Wet Week

The forecast is for showers, so the first few of the following are sites under the trees.

• Up the dirt track on the south side needs a small team walk through, weeding Morning glory other vines & Lantana plus, Nightshades.  Check the surrounding mulch for Morning glory runners. Bag it all, don't hang it on the trees.
• Another team could tour the Old Forest west of cycleway where there's less weeds but a maybe dangerous leaning log up towards the creek bend. 
• East of the cycleway in the WARC* Zone is pretty good but the forest edge on the beach side is pretty weedy & there's Lantana to cut back, but not out.
• Out in the open, Whiskey Grass is seeding. Bag the seed heads west of cycleway first but there's more in a large clump towards the cyclone fence in the WARC Zone.
• Masses of Bidens in seed up behind McKellar Glade, bags & secateurs best. Bag the seed and the roots. Leave the stems for mulch usually on the path that you created trying to reach the plant
• Madeira is regrowing  over on the creek edge in Manifest Destiny. Dig those tubers & bag them. African Olives are laden with fruit so cut & bag those within reach.
• Report any deer damage. None seen yet but they can't be far off. 

 The cycle path edge is due for mowing, so prepare for this by pruning plants closer than one metre to the path. Also remove any lumps of dead plants that someone with a mower might choose to mow around.

Identify the various grasses, Kikuyu, Buffalo and Erharter. Remove any that are in conflict with native plants. For example where some saltbush has a grass runner sticking out the top, chase it down and get the longest part possible out of the plant..

*Weed Aware Random Citizens (WARCs) armed with secateurs could bag lots of Biden seeds & a few others, along the eastern edge of the cycleway but this would not have been on the direction of any Bushcare personel. 

2025 High Tides

The deluge last Thursday night washed the sand out of Hewitts Creek so the lagoon is now 2 metres lower than it was. That may mean the tidal surge will re-flood areas of Manifest Destiny & Lisa's Site. Won't know until we get there tomorrow but as all the low parts of our site were wet on Friday afternoon & Woodlands Creek was still 30 metres wide we'll have to make most of it up as we go tomorrow.
Inspecting back of beach will be the first task.

The safest bet is to start along the higher & drier Western Edge areas, like Stony Rd, behind the Blady Grass, up the dirt track & across to Andrews Amnesia. Secateurs & bags best for these areas. Brave souls can skirt Lake Zaremba and trust Bruce's rehabilitation of the Gillette Bridge over the Ditch because Madeira Vine is threatening over by the creek & Lisa's Site needs further work.

2024 Festival of the boot

We will plant in various locales while the more Revisionist minded might re-shape Blackberry, Crofton and Lantana at various sites.  

One relatively dry site will be among the flowering Cassia along the Stony Road so choppers should be happy. There's still some Polygala to finish nearby and a lot of Morning glory at the back of the Blady Grass area. 

Turkey rhubarb tracing on offer at Condons Corner.
I also have a few more "nursery items" for our recently chopped zone.

2023 Missive from Macca

Aiming to deal with weeds in grassy areas like Coolatai, Polygala & two or three localised issues.

2022 Cycleway upgrade

Council said a new stage of the cycleway upgrade is coming soon-ish: from the Tramway Creek causeway to the south end of the Hewitts Creek Bridge. Asphalt will become concrete, width stays the same except for the last 15m before the bridge where it widens to 3.5m and includes bollards in the centre & on both sides. 

A 10 week project Wollongong Council hopes, with the same detour for cyclists as when the bridge was being repaired.

And here is a shot of the creek.