This landscape is Wilson's Folly in the Pt Nepean National Park
This is one of the few areas of the Nepean Peninsula that may look similar to what it did when HM survey ship Lady Nelson sailed into Port Philip Bay under Lt. John Murray in 1802
This is a sheltered grassland bowl with scattered Coast Banksias and on the ridges, Moonah, Wirilda and groves of Drooping Sheokes. The once co-dominant Sheokes are notably absent in this photograph, having been systematically harvested for lime burning up until the early 20th century and the regrowth grazed by livestock, to the point where they are now only sparsely distributed in the landscape and would need some help to return to their former prominence in the southern peninsula eco-systems
The Coast Tea-tree, peviously only in specific coastal zones where it's eco-system niche is unstable dune sand, comprehensively colonised the sandy soils disturbed and degraded by the widespread clearing for lime kiln firing and city firewood and sustained hard-hoofed grazing of the past, i.e almost all of the Nepean Peninsula. As their life-span can be measured in decades, rather than centuries, whole cohorts of tea-tree can be seen dying back in many places and giving way to other, longer-living, canopy and understory species, neatly illustrating the process of longer-term natural succession in severely disturbed eco-systems
Grazing by locally extinct Grey Kangaroos, Wombats, Emus and other grazing birds and tree and shrub seedling and foliage browsing by the still present Wallabies would have kept these grasslands and grassy woodlands open and closely cropped, resulting in the impressions recorded by the first europeans*
It's difficult, in this age, to conceive how much wildlife was here before, but old anecdotal records (which is all we have) describe abundant populations of a great diversity of animals on the peninsula, almost all of which are now locally extinct
It's assumed that there was also regular patch burning by the Burinyung-balluk people, which would have contributed to the structure of the vegetation community. Evidence for this (let alone where, when and why?) is sparse, at best, being lost in the mists of dispossession. The account below contains one of only a couple of anecdotal records describing evidence of (assumedly) deliberate use of bushfire before the "old people" were removed from the land for their "protection"
Download a paper "The vegetation of the Nepean Penisula, Victoria, an historical perspective" Cunninghamia 2009
This is one of the few areas of the Nepean Peninsula that may look similar to what it did when HM survey ship Lady Nelson sailed into Port Philip Bay under Lt. John Murray in 1802
This is a sheltered grassland bowl with scattered Coast Banksias and on the ridges, Moonah, Wirilda and groves of Drooping Sheokes. The once co-dominant Sheokes are notably absent in this photograph, having been systematically harvested for lime burning up until the early 20th century and the regrowth grazed by livestock, to the point where they are now only sparsely distributed in the landscape and would need some help to return to their former prominence in the southern peninsula eco-systems
The Coast Tea-tree, peviously only in specific coastal zones where it's eco-system niche is unstable dune sand, comprehensively colonised the sandy soils disturbed and degraded by the widespread clearing for lime kiln firing and city firewood and sustained hard-hoofed grazing of the past, i.e almost all of the Nepean Peninsula. As their life-span can be measured in decades, rather than centuries, whole cohorts of tea-tree can be seen dying back in many places and giving way to other, longer-living, canopy and understory species, neatly illustrating the process of longer-term natural succession in severely disturbed eco-systems
Grazing by locally extinct Grey Kangaroos, Wombats, Emus and other grazing birds and tree and shrub seedling and foliage browsing by the still present Wallabies would have kept these grasslands and grassy woodlands open and closely cropped, resulting in the impressions recorded by the first europeans*
It's difficult, in this age, to conceive how much wildlife was here before, but old anecdotal records (which is all we have) describe abundant populations of a great diversity of animals on the peninsula, almost all of which are now locally extinct
It's assumed that there was also regular patch burning by the Burinyung-balluk people, which would have contributed to the structure of the vegetation community. Evidence for this (let alone where, when and why?) is sparse, at best, being lost in the mists of dispossession. The account below contains one of only a couple of anecdotal records describing evidence of (assumedly) deliberate use of bushfire before the "old people" were removed from the land for their "protection"
Download a paper "The vegetation of the Nepean Penisula, Victoria, an historical perspective" Cunninghamia 2009
From the ship's log of HMS Lady Nelson
HMS Lady Nelaon
* "The
southern shore of this noble harbour is bold high land in general and
not clothed as all the land at Western Point (Port) is with thick brush
but with stout trees of various kinds and in some places falls nothing
short, in beauty and appearance, of Greenwich Park .... I went on shore
and walked through the woods a couple of miles. The ground was hard and
pleasant to walk on, the trees are at a good distance from each other
and no brush intercepts you; the soil is good as far as we may be
judges. I saw several native huts and very lately they have burnt off
several hundred acres of ground. Young grass we found springing up over
all the ground we walked ..... To
describe this part I walked through is simply to say that it nearly
resembles a walk on Blackheath and the Park if we set out of question
the houses and gardens of the latter. The hills and valleys rise and
fall with inexpressible elegance. We discovered no water nor any new
wood of consequence, but it is impossible that a great want of water can
be here from the number of native huts and fires we fell in with in our
march ..... I
took a long range through the woods attended with an armed party. The
ground we walked over was open and the same as before described, with
good soil ..... Sent
an armed party and our carpenter (on) a long range through the woods to
try the different kinds of wood. None however was found of use, the
trees being almost invariably oak (sheoke) and other wood (banksia and
wattle) quite common at Sydney"
Read the Gutenberg Project full manuscript of the log here
Read the whole extract relating to the visit to Port Phillip Bay
HMS Calcutta and James Tuckey's Journal
HMS Calcutta entering Port Philip with HMS Ocean and Arthur's Seat in the background by Dacre Smith
For more observations of Port Phillip in 1802 go to the journal of James Tuckey of HMS Calcutta at the Gutenberg Project or read the relevant extract on this website
See Tuckey's appraisal of the various types of Australian wood here