Category: Sustainability and the environment

All in a Day #16 – Hyde Park – An Obituary?

My backyard

Hyde Park in Mount Lawley has been my backyard for over 30 years. A place of solitude, a running track, a picnic spot, a catch up with friends, a live music venue, a birdwatching platform, a dog walking park, a playground for my kids and now grandkids and most of all somewhere to go when the weather is stupidly hot.

My first visit to Hyde Park was within weeks of moving to Perth in the mid- eighties. My new friend and housemate, Glen, thrust a can of Emu Bitter in my hand and threw me my car keys (he didn’t drive) saying “I need to show you something.”

So, beer in hand we drove to Hyde Park from Subiaco and walked a couple of laps of this magnifcient park. No stranger to these types of parks, being from Tassie, I agreed it was beautiful and vowed to visit again soon. It became the place I took visitors to or went for a picnic occasionally.

It wasn’t until years later when I moved to within walking distance of Hyde Park that it became a regular haunt. We lived in a townhouse with a small courtyard and Hyde Park was our backyard, frontyard and playground.

It was the thoroughfare we used to walk or ride our bikes to our local primary school, the place my kids had birthday parties and caught up with their friends after school. It was grazed knees, icypoles and arvo tea before heading home after school.

It was (and still is) my daily walk – to check on the ducks and lately to count the trees. During my running years it was the laps I pounded over and over, slowly progressing to the first of many fun runs, triathlons and later half marathons.

It’s the place I go to make sense of the world. When I was completing my teaching degree it was the place I went to get clarity when tackling an assignment or before an exam. During COVID it was where everyone went! Now it’s to form the perfect headline for a piece of writing or dredge up some new ideas for a project.

It’s a regular picnic spot where large groups of us gather for catchups and birthdays – the scene of many annual Purple Picnics beneath the Jacaranda trees. Special occasions, sad occasions and celebratory occasions.

My kids (now adults) knew every low-hanging branch, every nook and what was the best angle to hold your body to get the metal roundabout spinning crazy fast. We had names for the ducks and could recount every batch of cygnets. We rescued many injured birds – trudging through thick mud to do so.

The park is still there and at the time of writing this, in full canopy. In a matter of weeks, 180 trees will be removed. Some of Perth’s oldest and largest Morton Bay Figs and London Plane Trees will no longer exist, the entire ecosystem of the islands in the centre of both lakes will be razed to the ground upsetting the nesting sites and possibly displacing hundreds if not thousands of living things, including ducks, swans, ibis and turtles.

Unfortunately the trees at Hyde Park have fallen victim to our love of travel and nice things. Those nice things are the furniture and wooden artifacts made from untreated wood from south-east Asia. Failure to declare wooden products at customs means the invasive Polyphagous shot-hole borer has managed to sneak in. A tiny beetle (2mm) that bores into tree trunks and eventually starves the tree of water and nourishment from inside. First discovered in Fremantle 18 months ago it has infested trees in some of Perth’s major parks, including Kings Park and the only way to stop the spread is to remove the trees.

There are 900 trees in Hyde Park, and in the time I have spent there I have noted very few new trees planted to replace the dead or removed trees. Gaps appear and then are forgotten about – like when you have a molar removed – after a while you stop noticing the gap. This time, the demise of the trees is no longer gradual , its going to be a full-scale decimation.

Perth has just experienced some of the hottest days on record – day after day of temperatures over 35 degrees starts to take its toll on wildlife and humans. Hyde Park and nearby Mary Street are two of the coolest places to go when the temperature is crazy hot.

Suburbs that previously had adequate tree canopies are now more concrete than ever. Developers continue to rush in and bowl over entire blocks including established trees and gardens only to leave blocks empty for years. Can never understand what the rush is.

Hyde Park as we know it is about to change forever. Now I flinch everytime I hear a chainsaw and get anxious when I see plastic tape around a tree – It won’t be long before thats all we can hear.

Bular Mial/Bluff Knoll, Stirling Range National Park, Western Australia

Fancy seeing the world from the top? A sunrise hike up one of Western Australia’s highest land forms will not disappoint.

We were up at 3:15 am on a Friday to climb WA’s highest mountain in the South West! Bular Mial/Bluff Knoll stands 1095m above sea level and it is classed as a grade 4 climb of 6.8 km. Bluff Knoll is part of the region in the Stirling Ranges originally inhabited by the Mineng and Goreng people. The mountain is a four hour drive south from Perth on the way to Albany. https://parks.dpaw.wa.gov.au/site/bluff-knoll-car-park-trail-head

The summit of Bluff Knoll at sunrise

The night sky was lit with bright stars and there was no cloud cover to be seen when we strapped ourselves in the car to drive 45 km to the base of Bluff Knoll. We were staying in accommodation at the Karribank Chalets in the Porongurups. A stunning part of the world and a first time visit for my partner and I.

Being around 6 degrees Celsius, we layered our clothing and made sure we had something warm to put on at the summit. Water, a small flask of coffee and some nut bars for sustenance, were jammed into our backpacks. I decided against taking the big camera and opted for my GoPro instead.

The car park was empty – we were the first to arrive! We paid our National Park Fee of $15/car at the Trail head using the automatic machine. This is a requirement of entering the park. Your docket must be displayed on the dash of your car. At 4:16 am we strapped on our head torches and found the beginning of the trail. Apart from the amazing skyscape all we could see was the imposing shape of Bluff Knoll looming above us in the dark.

The beginning of the trail lulls you into a false sense of security as it plunges down into a valley before rising. The paths is well maintained and made up mostly of steps fashioned into the granite rock and box wood construction. It wasn’t long before our glutes were singing and our heart rates pumping. After walking for around 30 minutes the path began it’s spiral around the Knoll. It was still dark so we were relatively unaware of the growing drop to our right.

It wasn’t long before we were warm enough to take off some layers and stop for a quick drink. We could hear another hiking group not far behind us and this spurred us on to keep going. Nothing like a bit of competition to inspire you!

Sunrise was supposed to be around 5:33 am and we started to see a change in the available light. The looming Knoll was very imposing. We also realised the sun was rising behind us so we quickened our steps to reach the summit in time. When the sun started to come up over the horizon we had reached a point on the climb where we could see the orange glow lighting up the peak. Perfect timing!

At 6:16 am we reached the actual summit, which is a bit further than you first think. Breathtaking! Our hiking competition arrived around 10 minutes behind us so we had the summit to our selves for the shortest time.

We were poised above the low cloud cover which made the view even more spectacular. There was not a breath of wind but it was certainly cold. Our layers were quickly relayered, coffee poured and we sat on top of the world looking down on some of the most beautiful country in the world.

Unable to bring myself to stand close to the edge like some of the young climbers who seemed hell bent on getting the most crazy Instagram photo they could, I lay down and peered over. Took my breath away. Sheer rock face all the way down. A sign warned us not to throw rocks off the edge as rock climbers could be below.

Once we had taken our photos and rested for a while we decided to head on down to see what scenery we had missed on our dark ascent. They say that “coming down is the hardest thing”, to borrow a song line from Tom Petty, and I must say my calves and knees are certainly paying the price 3 days later.

This climb is one I have always wanted to do and I was not disappointed. Come prepared, wear appropriate footwear and clothing in case of extreme weather on the summit. I used a stick that a previous hiker had kindly left by the beginning of the trail, and I would recommend walking poles especially on the way down.

If you love hiking and climbing the Porongurups are around 30 minutes away and boast amazing granite peaks with a number of climbs. We climbed up to Castle Rock and the Granite Skywalk which was well worth the walk. https://parks.dpaw.wa.gov.au/park/porongurup

Thank you Former Prime Minister

An open letter from the future to the former Prime Minister of Australia. Wishful thinking ❤️

For my grandchild…

January, 2040

Dear Former Prime Minister of Australia,

I want to thank you on behalf of my grandchild, who is now a young woman, for doing everything you could to ensure that the world she now flourishes in, is clean, sustainable and ethical.

Thank you for listening to the young people who led the climate change protests in 2019 and for then making the changes required to bring about a more sustainable world. The way you led our country and showed the rest of the world that Australia is a country to look up to and to be reckoned,  with was phenomenal.

The funding of wind farms and the solar energy initiative introduced in central Australia, in the wake of your revolutionary decision to halt coal mining, was inspirational to say the least. I commend the way you managed to reemploy the almost 200,000 people employed by the coal industry by funding retraining in the wind and solar power industries. Making Australia carbon neutral ten years before the original target was an absolutely mammoth effort! World leaders now look to you when there are big decisions to be made. Congratulations on your recent Nobel prize, by the way.

Thank you for placing a ban on logging of old growth forests Australia-wide and for making it illegal to damage trees on private property without a permit. Such insight is to be applauded. The Australian animals were greatly reduced in numbers following the terrible fires of 2019/2020. The Koala was on the critically endangered list for many years but numbers are now being boosted by the breeding programs in the federally funded wildlife centres. The tree planting initiative undertaken by your government has meant the trees are also now regenerating.

The restriction on importing cheap timber from the Amazon Rain Forest has meant that the Amazon Forest, the lungs of the Earth, has started to regenerate and other countries have followed in your footsteps. Well done.

My gratitude to you knows no bounds for the way you imposed sanctions on the use of single-use plastics and made a pledge to phase out the use of plastics in supermarkets and the retail business sector. The howls of derision from the retail sector did not weaken your resolve. You stood firm and made the hard decisions. Thank you for taking control of Australia’s rubbish and recycling and thank you for no longer sending it overseas for processing. Our rubbish, our problem.

The demise of the Murray-Darling Basin, where millions of fish suffocated and died and blue-green algae blooms decimated the waters, was one of the worst environmental disasters of the century. Your actions following this disaster meant that agricultural waste was no longer permitted to be washing into our river systems. It has taken a long time but gradually we are seeing a difference.

The way you turned over the management of lands and reserves to Australia’s first people, following the long overdue signing of the Treaty,  has made the world of difference to the amount of bush fires in the hotter months. The formally dispossessed people have finally been able to  complete their journey towards reconciliation. Thank you.

Because you made the difficult decisions when required I am now filled with hope for the future. The current Prime Minister, and her cabinet are an inspiration to women everywhere with her empathy and her strong leadership. Just the type of role model I want for my granddaughter. Thank you for paving the way for women in leadership. Your decision to put more women on the front bench was a prudent one.

Thanks to you, my granddaughter now has a future that will provide for her children and their grandchildren. When they study history at school they will see that you were instrumental in their hopeful future. Again I say thank you From the bottom of my heart!

Yours sincerely,

Future Grandmother