Conservation Volunteers Australia—the Days

Continued from below click to read.3 days, 800 seedlings and more than 2000 guards. Friday went quickly, the threat of rain and being stuck in the bottom of ‘the island’ (all the roads are mud—environmentally friendly!) meant that we would only do a half day. We drove onto Ballarat where we would be staying in camping cabins for the two nights. Ballarat was the site of a gold rush in 1851 and quickly blossomed into a large town/city. Its only contribution to everyday life nowadays though is two McDonalds and Eureka (a life-size model minor’s town). It rained. All night. The Olympics opening ceremony was on, so we watched that. The next day we awoke to the sound of the most annoying bird ever (a cross between a car alarm and something inconsiderably worse). We made out way back out to ‘the island’ to continue doing what we had done the previous day. We hadn’t managed to see any kangaroos the day before but on out way out that say we say a group of them bouncing along the hillside. It was cool to see Australia wildlife out in the open instead of inside cages or parks (and the kangaroos were actually large for this reason—up to 6ft tall in one case). By lunchtime we’d planted the remaining space, making up almost 800 trees planted. They were on their own now—I asked but they didn’t have numbers for how many seedlings survived. We went down Werribee Gorge to eat lunch and make some guards for the next day. During the days we had begun a working knowledge of the native trees we were planting (like the salt bush, which smells terrible and tastes the same). On completion we went back to the caravan site where it proceeded to rain well into the night again. During one rain free period we made a quick trip to the closer of two McDonalds, walking through the rain soaked town past the giant Southern Cross sail-like flag (the Southern Cross is the symbol of minors) at Eureka. The final day we got out to the island to discover it was absolutely freezing, threatening rain (or possibly even snow) and windy too. In as many layers as we could possibly put on we went to plant some guards where sheep had broken in and eaten whole rows of them. As the rain came in again we made a quick escape from ‘the island,’ when finished sticking over 2000 guards. Cold and muddy but still dry, we made our way back to Melbourne, seeing snow (I thought I was in sunny Australia), rain and rainbows on the way. In the distance we could see Melbourne, growing steadily, but neat to see the city we live in from afar. We played a game of ‘wave to drivers’—turns out Australians are VERY friendly.

Conservation Volunteers Australia—Who, What, Where

Jumping back to the 8th, 9th and 10th of August (yea, I know a month and a half ago) I went with a group of people from AustraLearn to participate in Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA). To say that we didn’t know what we were doing is an understatement; we didn’t even know where we were going to do this conserving. All we knew was that we needed a pair of good shoes and a sleeping bag and to meet at the CVA office in Melbourne at 9 in the morning. On arrival we found out we were heading to ‘the island,’ this too was an understatement because ‘the island’ is actually just outside Ballarat—a town a good 70 minutes from any water source large enough to contain an island. We were going to plant seedlings in hopes of creating forest on farmland brought by the government to link up existing forestland. As we traveled out we found civilization slipping away and we were greeted by rolling hills and a growing mountain ranges. Being in the water-locked side of the Great Divide the soil is still brown everywhere, but I would still have called this the outback compared to the cosmopolitan life we’d been living for the previous month. As we pulled up at ‘the island’ (in reality a strip of land bordered on one side by a pitiful stream and gorge on the other) it came apparent why AustraLearn provided this opportunity to us pretty much free of charge—to experience life outside the city. An energetic badger came up to our minibus (no, that’s a persons name—not the largest relative to the weasel) to describe exactly what we were doing. As we stepped out we realized that north of Melbourne was (if it was possible in Australia) even colder than actual Melbourne. Shivering—yes it really was that cold—we got to know the basics. The basics: step one) dig a small hole, step two) place seedling and secure and step three) create a guard (biodegradable rectangular paper shields supported by two bamboo sticks) and place around seedling. The trees we were planting were all native to Australia, so that they’d make authentic forestland when they fully matured. We’d be working on a stretch right near the end of ‘the island’, on a downhill piece of land. Oh, and there were wild kangaroos on ‘the island’. This was going to be a cool weekend (physically cold yes, but also enjoyable and we could save the environment after killing it traveling from the states).