Up to the Kids Now - River Reserve Tyenna

Saturday 30 July 2016

Our plan had been to prepare plant locations at the river reserve at Tyenna to be ready for the students of Westerway Primary School, who had 180 plants to go in as part of National Tree Day. The day originally set aside had to be cancelled due to the extensive flooding in the valley, leaving us to do the work on same day as the planting.  Weather again interfered and now in lovely sunny conditions we finally got to the site.

Once the task of digging the commenced it became very apparent that we would have struggled mightily to keep ahead of the planting efforts of the kids, if it had been on the same day.  The earth was soft but unfortunately had lots of rocks and each hole took time and a lot of grunt and perseverance. Three hours later the holes were all done and sticks pushed in to mark each one.

Site 1 - Approx 125 plant spots

Site 1 River Reserve at Tyenna

Site 2  for 23 plants

To get there one has to go down a side road off Tyenna Road (just prior to a bridge leading to the Marriotts Falls walking track) to a railway line then walk about 175 metres, through a pine plantation and on through the river reserve. In an open area on the left, just before reaching the Tyenna River, is a plot at the tree edge for 30 plants.  The bulk of them are reached by taking a path beside the river leading left for another 120 metres to an open area where two sites have been prepared. The first has holes for 125 plants and the second of which is past a shrub line to a small open spot where there is room for another 23.

The open area can be reached by a direct line, but can be a bit wet with pools of water.  These pools in fact may be useful to use in watering the plants. No holes have been dug close to river as the bank as there is a short steep bank that one wouldn’t want kids to work close to.

Satellite view of planting site