Robyn Gill -Coal Point Landcare Coordinator
In recent years Lake Macquarie City Council has acquired 16 lots of land zoned for voluntary acquisition to help link parcels to create a significant reserve area along the top of the ridge.
Locally unique, as all but one other of Coal Point’s 13 reserves adjoin the lake, it suffers less from the problems of drainage carrying seeds of exotic plants from gardens. Exotic seeds sprout enthusiastically further down the catchment in the foreshore reserves with their moist, nutrient rich refuges.
This ridge reserve also contains very special and rarer plants that we don’t see in any other areas around here due to the hilltop geography and geology. It provides a window back in time for the local vegetation.
This reserve also contains the remnants of the track that was used by miners walking to work at the Ebenezer Coal Mine, the first commercial activity on Coal Point. The track was developed by the Christian missionary Rev. Lance Threlkeld who worked with the Aboriginal philosopher and linguist Biraban to compile the first dictionary of Awabakal language (An Australian Grammar 1834) from which many of our reserve names have come.
Recently volunteers of Coal Point Landcare Group worked in this reserve as a group for the first time along with some volunteers from the Landcare Resource Office and two professional bush regenerators and were happy to see so much plant beauty with fewer weeds giving us a somewhat more achievable targets than usual.
If you'd like to come landcaring and get a very different perspective on our local bushland give me ring on 4959 4019.
