Tortoise Creek Landcare Group

Picture of Tortoise Creek Landcare Group

The Tortoise Creek Landcare Group (L-R) Leoni Hubbard, Drew Bickford, Margaret Chapman, Lyn Clarke, Mara Kiek, Llew Kiek, Michael Maack, Janet Woodworth, Beau the Dog


Article by Mara Kiek, Bushcare Volunteer

Tortoise Creek Landcare works in the creek area adjacent to Russell Avenue and Meeks Crescent Faulconbridge. The group's first meeting was at a neighbourhood BBQ in the spring of 2001 where locals decided to begin the regeneration of our weed and rubbish degraded creek which bordered or crossed our properties on its way down the valley to the National Park.

Tortoise Creek, so named because we spotted a miniature tortoise near the banks during one of our first working days, runs entirely on private property, so when we began our initial training sessions with Chris Dewhurst in late 2001 we worked in local Jackson Park.

Since that time the group has met regularly on the third Saturday of the month, and with considerable assistance from council officers Linda Thomas and Jill Rattray, we now have a good knowledge of weeds, native plants and regeneration techniques. With their advice we have also applied for and been granted funds to purchase an extensive array of tools.

Our initial work involved extensive eradication of agapanthus, small and large leaf privet, honeysuckle, coreopsis and Crofton weed. The latter two still haunt us, but as we are winning the battle against them, we have turned our eradication attention to paspalum, Japanese knotweed and African love grass. We are very pleased to see that native grasses such as microlaena and basket grass are really coming back into the several areas of our site where they were previously absent.

Our major concern during the last couple of years has been the vast increase in volume and intensity of water flow caused by the widening of the Great Western Highway to four lanes in Faulconbridge. Much of the northerly run-off seems to have been directed into our valley, and our creek has been severely eroded from a base of sand and soil back to bedrock, and widened by more than a metre on each side in some places. Our attempts at physical stabilisation of the lateral erosion with chicken wire and log levees at critical points in the watercourse were successful, but we couldn't cover every twist and turn of the creek.

A solution to the problem was propounded after lengthy consultations between Tortoise Creek Land­care members, other concerned residents, council landcare officers named above and the RTA environmental representative Joseph Fanous. That was that a "rain garden" was to be constructed at the upper end of our site on an RTA owned parcel of land bordering the highway. This would regulate the flow of run-off water, and reduce the impact of the flow volume and velocity back to that experienced prior to the highway upgrade. A great idea, well researched, this structure is currently being built.

In 2003 we collected seeds from plants growing in our site area, and some months later seedlings from these were planted. We were particularly intent on placing Blackwattle and tea tree seedlings on the eroded creek banks, and stabilising with basket grass. We have been success­ful in some areas, but with recent major flooding, severe erosion is still occurring, and we are relying on the "rain garden" to provide a solution to our problem. We are confident that it will have a major impact on the system.

Maybe the "rain garden" is a possible solution to some of the hydrological problems which Leura roadwidening has created. In any event, once we have the system in place we will report on its success, while continuing our program to rejuvenate our area.