10 BTAC Volunteers met with Parks Vic Ranger Zoey Godfrey at the Lake Catani campground on Friday 27 for a welcome and induction in preparation for an early start the next day. Zoey outlined her expectations and safety requirements and that we would be working on Saturday morning to clear tracks in the Le Souf Plateau area of the Mt Buffalo National Park.
When we left Melbourne heavy rainfall was underway across Victoria and by good fortune avoided Mt Buffalo and we able to get the job done in fine and warm conditions.
The trip was a first visit to Mt Buffalo for some volunteers. As the work progressed all expressed admiration for the ever present expansive views of the rugged granite  terrain  and surrounding mountains, and this is reflected in the photos.
The Lake Catani campground is a Parks Vic hidden gem. It has first class camping facilities and is a great place to chill out or go for a walk after working on the tracks,  Some volunteers opted to take up Parks kind offer of staying on an extra night.
The project was conducted safely with no reported safety incidents or issues.
The  main work objectives  for the weekend were to:
- clear by brush cutting, hedge trimming , and raking excessive vegetation over tracks in the Le Souf Plateau and Cathedral area.
- locate and clear drainage features on pathways, conserving their heritage value and sensitivity to further erosion using line trimming, matocking where appropriate and blowing to expose as well as cleanup
Tracks in this area contain frequent formed stone  steps and staircases . They have been in place for more than 50 years and required careful treatment so as to not disturb the placement of each rock step and its water drain features, and not to cause damage that will create future erosion issues.
The team used normal brush cutting, raking and tossing methods to clear excessive vegetation. The ensuing drainage maintenance was more of a conservation exercise with track features passed first with a pack mounted blower and then carefully manicured with line trimmers and some low impact matocking before the blower was used as a final debris removal leaving the stairs, etc. looking like brand new!
Blowing causes leaves, accumulated dirt and debris to fly everywhere. We were fortunate to have hot showers at the Lake Catani campsite so we could all get clean at end of day. This process, implemented recently by Zoey certainly is effective on rock stair tracks but not so on sandy surfaces where the powerful air flow can easily erode the track surface. Well done to Robyn, Emily and Toby for their enthusiastic adoption of this new BTAC technology!
Other worthy mentions are Heather, Mark, Phil, Colin and Yvonne, for their constant hard work on brush cutting, raking and tossing, and to Peter for celebrating his birthday with us! Â Â Also thanks to Zoey for the delicious BBQ meal!
For those interested we contributed approx. 240 volunteer and achieved the following stats.
Le Souf Track and side tracks to The Sentinel, Mahomet’s Tomb. Corral Peak and the Castle.
Works completed:
- 1200 m Brush cutting. Line trimming and clean up
- 800m Hedge trimming
- 500 m Track blowing to remove debris and expose drainage
- 400 m drains on Sentinel Track
- Replaced totem and temporary sign on Castle track
The Hump and Cathedral track
Works completed:
- 2000m blowing (up and down ) to expose drains and remove debris
- 900m brush cutting and hedge trimming
- 500m clearance of well hidden drains
- Replacement of totem on Cathedral track
Trip Photos can be found here
The project was a great success and we are all looking forward to next year
Mike Grant
BTAC Project Leader
