Death on the race

Are we being melodramatic? Maybe. Check this out:

That’s a patch of Hardenbergia, on the side of the maintenance track on the Coliban main channel, south of the Fryers-Taradale road. There’s quite a lot of Hardenbergia on that stretch: in fact, we chose to highlight it in our notes for walk 13 in our 20 Bushwalks guide. There’s also quite a bit of Trailing Shaggy Pea, and Grevillea, and Grey Everlasting, and Bush-Pea. Most of it now looks like this:

Someone with a key to the locked gate has gone along the race, spraying these quite harmless plants, for reasons unknown. We’ve enquired of Coliban Water what might be the rationale for the spraying. They’re looking into it.

This is what Trailing Shaggy-pea looks like when it’s alive:

It flowers from November. There are impressive carpets of it in the area of the Coliban channel…but not along the track, now. We’ll report on the reasons for the current bleak look of the maintenance track when and if we find out.