On Sunday, August 27th, a team from Barwon Timber went back out to Balliang to plant 500 more trees. Once again, we partnered with 15 Trees and the Balliang Landcare Group to plant Koala habitat trees. This partnership aims to create a “Bio Corridor” for the animals to travel safely along.
Fifteen Trees is an Australian company located in the Central Highlands of Victoria. Established in 2009, the company operates with a small team and a host of independent native nurseries and community groups (such as Landcare, school groups and environmental networks) across Australia. To date, they have helped community groups plant over 350,000 Trees in all states and territories of Australia.
Under overcast skies, the team got started digging holes, planting the tree seedlings and putting up the tree guards. We worked along the dry banks of Sandy Creek, which will also help mitigate the erosion problem caused by flash flooding after heavy rain in the area. The team worked tirelessly through hardships like Andrew Quin getting a splinter, myself being viciously attacked by some biting insect, and Jacob De Beer putting in a stellar effort after driving back from Tamworth the day before.
As morning tea was served and a well-earned coffee was consumed, the sun came out to make it a beautiful day for us to finish off the trees. Everyone knuckled down and worked so efficiently that the folks from Balliang Landcare had to scramble to find extra trees for us to plant. We ran out of guards and stakes, but it didn’t stop us as we soldiered on until there were no more trees to plant and nowhere to plant them! In the end, we planted a whopping 570 trees.
The Balliang Landcare Group were thrilled with our efforts and fired up the barbie for a thank you lunch. Freeman and Will got “hangry” and couldn’t wait for the barbie to be cooked, so they left. Richie was summoned by his wife and also left, but the rest of us stayed for a great feed. The pork and apple burgers deserve a special mention as they were the talk of the group.
It was great to see so many people return from last year, which shows how enjoyable and rewarding this day is. I look forward to organising this event again next year, hopefully with even more volunteers and an opportunity to plant even more trees.
Thank you to everyone who came along this year, and I hope to see you back again.
Rob Pocklington
Timber Sales Team Leader