BETWEEN FRIENDS

Hi there!

Welcome to the new year; lets make it another good one for the Friends. This issue contains a report on the AGM weekend in December 1997, which also includes a run-down on the Potholes revegetation project up to the conclusion of the latest phase. The all-important calendar for this year is also presented.

The Labour Day public holiday is on Monday 9th March and we are making a long weekend of it up at Buchan for the first working bee of this year. The first activity will be an informal meeting with the Caves Reserve staff at 10:00 am on Saturday in the main Caves Reserve, to set the course of the group for 1998.

There will also be a free barbecue on the Saturday evening at 6:15 pm at the Guide Hut. Please bring your own salads and drinks. If you wish to come to the barbecue then please make sure that you contact Mick Adler so that he knows numbers for catering purposes.

Some ideas for projects have been suggested:

• Concreting the entrance passage into Federal Cave.
• Cleaning and denetting Fairy Cave.
• Removing old planks out of Moons Cave and replacing with appropriate materials.
• Finding a better place for the donations bin in Fairy Cave.

As you can see, there will certainly be a lot of in-cave work happening this year. If you have any other worthwhile ideas for projects then please let Mick know or voice them at the meeting. Work on some of these projects may commence immediately, so please consider coming up to Buchan for this weekend, to help out with the work, meet some friends and the staff at the reserve, and enjoy the barbecue.

For those of you who were not at the AGM, a copy of the 96/97 financial report is enclosed with this newsletter.

Friends' 10th Anniversary Weekend

6 - 7 December 1997

The Annual General Meeting of the Friends of Buchan Caves was held at Buchan on 6th December 1997. This annual general meeting was significant to the Friends because it marked the tenth year of our existence.

The Friends of Buchan Caves was originally set up on Sunday 15th November 1987. The principal motivator for the group was the enthusiastic Graham Parkes, then Ranger in Charge at the Buchan Caves Reserve. At Graham's suggestion, we organised a small working party, put together some of our ideas and then we added the first Friends project to the caving calendar to assess how much interest there was from others.

We were strongly encouraged to that first project - a walking track up to the top of the hill above Moon Cave - and felt that the group was going to be viable. Now, ten years later, Friends projects continue to attract the interest and participation of cavers and others interested in karst.

This weekend also marked the end of phase II of the Potholes Revegetation Project. The project commenced with a pilot plot (phase I) in October 1992 with the fencing out of a small (0.9 Ha) plot of land on the eastern boundary of allotment 22A at The Potholes. An electric fence unit was purchased and installed to keep domestic and wild animals out. The plot was weeded continually for a year or so then planted with endemic tree species in July 1994.

Despite setbacks, including a deliberately lit fire, the Friends persisted and replaced damaged trees so that the pilot plot became a success.

In 1996 a much more ambitious project was proposed. This involved the enlargement of the fenced out area to 3.5 Ha (almost 10% of the total area of the allotment) and an application for a grant from the department of $4,020.

The existing fence was extended up the hill to the southern boundary of the allotment during a week in September 1996. This involved the driving of many steel posts and the collection of many painful blisters - some of the posts had to be driven several times before a clear spot could be found in the rocky ground.

Over that Summer, seeds were collected from nearby local eucalypts and acacias and arrangements made with a commercial nursery to propagate 1,200 trees in forestry tubes. While the seedlings were growing in the nursery over late 1996 and early 1997, the revegetation plot was extensively weeded using a weedicide applied by hand using weeding wands.

Starting with the Anzac Day weekend of 25-27 April 1997, the trees were progressively planted out and were protected by individual tree guards. Many people participated in that first burst of planting activity and almost two-thirds of the plot was covered with a mosaic of tree guards each with its tree cradled inside.

The work after that seemed to fall to a few diehard Friends who continued with the project, planting out their quota of trees in the steep, rocky but fertile ground. The trees were planted in a pattern matching that of the nearby road reserve which represents the best stretch of undisturbed ground in the vicinity of the Potholes paddock.

The last 75 trees were planted on 6th December 1997 just prior to the Friends' AGM to be held that night. In total, over 1,200 trees were planted consisting of a mix of eucalypts (E. melliodora, E. rubida and E. viminalis) and Acacia species (A. melanoxylon and A. mearnsii). Weed eradication has continued in parallel with the tree planting and the plot, once heavily infested with weed species like Great Mullein, Horehound Bathurst Burr and thistles, now reveals the original mix of Themeda and Microlena grasses.

Also on the AGM weekend, a section of wire netting in Fairy Cave, in the vicinity of Titanias Bower, was removed allowing people on tours to see the decoration in that area in a much more pleasing way than peering through chicken wire.

The annual general meeting itself was held at the guides' quarters and was preceded by a barbecue prepared by the president, Spot Matthews, ably assisted by treasurer, Phil Steel. There was a surprise in store - Spot had arranged for local caterer, Gwen Holloway, to make a magnificent chocolate cake which was inscribed with the words, "F.O.B.C. - 10th Anniversary".

Thirty people attended the meal and the AGM. We always seem to get some people along to the free meal that we never see for the rest of the year for some reason. Elections were held for the committee for 1998. The results were:

President:	Mick Adler	Treasurer:	Phil Steel
Vice President:	Jim Tulk	Secretary:	Erica Maggs

The outgoing committee was thanked and, after addresses by the outgoing president Spot, and Dale Calnin, as representative of the Caves Reserve, who thanked the Friends for the successful projects over the past year, the meeting closed late in the evening.

Those who attended and worked on this weekend were:

Peter Ackroyd	Jack Lewendon	Brody Steel
Mick Adler	Erica Maggs	Ashlea Tulk
Glenn Baddeley	Thomas Maggs	Brenton Tulk
Dale Calnin	Spot Matthews	Jim Tulk
Cathie Cranston	Bryan Ray	Rowan Wilson
Geoff Hammond	Phil Steel

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