Sisters Beach Wildcare

A place to pause, or chat with friends (and make new ones!)

Sisters Beach Wildcare have commenced a new season of planning, weeding and planting at the beautiful Sisters Beach Estuary and are pleased to be part of the Pause Place Project in Waratah-Wynyard Council – encouraging people to stay a while, rest and enjoy the view or chat with friends (and make new ones!)

All are welcome to join their working bees, usually held on a Sunday morning – keep an eye on the Wildcare event calendar for details.

The main focus areas for the group this year are:

  • Removal of guards from some plants in the Paperbark Woodland area, weed around these, and get new paperbarks in, using a technique worked out by Sam last Autumn.
  • Weeding around the existing plants along the nature trail, and bolstering these with new plants, as well as placing more signage along the paths.
  • Starting to plant out the Frog Hollow, Shade Glade and Rainforest Retreat, now that the paths and seating mounds are in place for these.

The group will also be asking Council to install the last path from the main trail to the mound this year, and the Kids Play Loop trail out to the west of the mound – this is likely to happen in the second half of the year.

A bunch of paperbarks is ready to plant in, once we get some decent rain, and a whole lot of new plants ordered, to go in along the nature trail and around the paths in the back area.

There have been a number of working bees over the summer, to tidy up the paperbark and nature trail sites, pull out weeds, and talk through the Autumn planting program (which will start around April, once we get some rain and some moisture back in the soil).

During February the group enjoyed productive afternoons down at the estuary, weeding around plants planted last Spring at the front of the site, near the main path, and releasing some of the growing plants from their cages. They also looked at the newly installed Frog Hollow and discussed some options for how we might set this up for water plants over the coming months.

Lively conversations over afternoon tea can range in topic from the virtues of Taylor Swift (Nichola headed to Melbourne for the TS concert), to the processes and outcomes of the Council and Alluvium workshop on possible actions to address the coastal erosion around Sisters Beach. The group have been looking at options for what might be done, and will attend the next workshop, where concrete proposals for what actions might be taken will be presented.

Very soon, the log seats coming from the Pause Places project will be installed on the mini-island in the middle of the Frog Hollow.