Endeavour Fern Gully
Red Hill's Endeavour Fern Gully contains the spring-fed headwaters of Stoney Creek, which meets the sea at Shoreham
Above are old Manna Gums in a regenerating open riparian woodland section of a former grazing property gifted to the National Trust in 1973
All but the largest trees in the picture are natural regrowth after the fence went up and the land was generally left to do it's thing
A few decades and a few woody weed control programs later...
There are also many indigenous middle and ground story plants among the shelter of the primary coloniser, Austral Bracken fern
This very creek gully once supported a sawmill and the giant Messmates of Red Hill are gone, though there is plenty of regeneration of the species here
Endeavour Fern Gully at Red Hill was classified by the National Trust in 2007
A friends group under the leadership of Mr Stewart Calder erected boardwalks, fenced the gully and established a walking track
The Gully was then opened to the public in 1989, but has been somewhat inaccessible for some years, with the bush resuming ownership of the path and the 20 year old boardwalks expiring, and virtually closed to visitors One of the unsung treasures of the National Trust in Victoria, there are at least two examples of indigenous vegetation species that are very rare in the area: Parsonsia brownii, the Twining Silk Pod, which has not been found elsewhere on the Mornington Peninsula, and Hedycarya angustifolia, the Austral Mulberry |
This rare remnant of the once densely-forested high-rainfall Red Hill Ridge, including the endangered vegetation community, Damp Forest (EVC 029) and the locally rare EVC 721, Fern Swamp, is being protected by revegetation with
indigenous flora in much of the surrounding pastured land, while a degree of
environmentally sensitive public access are being provided by the
construction of boardwalks and paths
Much good works have been done recently Various grants have helped provide for new boardwalks and track reinstatement, blackberry and willow control, the large scale removal of the many boundary pines and the planting out of the remaining exotic pasture grass paddock sections of the land, with the help of the Red Hill Consolidated School Green Team |
for a list of volunteer environmental groups on the Peninsula, see this page
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