Defeated

Marriotts Falls and Junee Caves Reserve

Saturday 17 April 2021

The weather forecast was for showers, but we decided to go ahead. It was a fine start in Hobart but on getting close to Mount Field showers could be seen in the high country. This prompted Marriotts Falls to be chosen in lieu of the planned tasks on the Lake Nicholls Track.

The first job once there was a bit of trimming on the 200 metres between the carpark and Haltons Creek. The bushes all of which had naturally revegetated had grown considerably in the 7 years since FOMF and PWS put in a blue metal path over the land where the radiata pines that had encroached into the river reserve were removed.

The main objective however was to check the plants that the kids from Westerway put in and remove invasive Foxgloves. The plants went in 2017 and 2018 and were looking good when last we were there in 2019, but it was a scene of devastation today. Animal browsing was so heavy that, many plants were dead, and others had very few leaves left. But it was the Foxgloves that caused us to feel defeated.

In the last few years Foxgloves had steadily invaded from the private land further uphill on this once cleared patch of land, but now had got into hard to get at reedy spots. Even though we dug out those in the open we knew the seed bank meant we would no longer be able to keep things in check.

After doing what we could it was decided to go to a revegetation site at Junee Cave Reserve that was done in December 2016. Here it was a different story with healthy well grown plants all high above the top of the wire tree guards that were used, which were removed as they had served their purpose.

Weather by the way was reasonable with the drizzle ceasing by the time the carpark was reached and only one noticeably light repeat whilst already sheltering at morning tea break. It may well have been OK up top, although the suspicion is that it would have been drizzly within the cloud layer that prevailed for much of the day.

The good