This August trip was very well attended, with seventeen people along for the week. Out of these we only had four who had participated in a Friends trip previously – Terry and Kate Kershaw, who have been on many trips; Alf Finch who was last here in 2000 and Marita Macrae who had been on one of the very early trips in 1998.
So it was good to see a lot of new people along who have heard about the good work by the Friends of Lord Howe and wanted to contribute. Gregory Andrews had visited previously in his role as Australia’s Threatened Species Ambassador in 2018 and returned this trip with his wife Rachel for their wedding anniversary He was delighted to see the recovery of all the wildlife following the success of the Rodent Eradication Project in 2019.
The first morning there was heavy rain and the group volunteered on a few projects at the museum – the long-term beach plastic monitoring, sorting plastic collected off island beaches and logging the data onto a national database, to help in the fight against plastic pollution. And part of the group assisted with sorting sub-fossil bird bones, for a project happening later this year.
Monday was fine, so we headed down to the south end of Lagoon Beach. One enthusiastic weeder wrote “Fitted out with fabulous German made gloves, Aussie made tool belt and tools of unknown origins, we spread out along the beach like the troops arriving on the Normandy sands – well not really, but we were determined to hunt down and eradicate the enemy – Sea spurge.”
Other weeding days were spent removing thousands of weedy Norfolk Island pine seedlings from North Bay; one morning assisting the Lord Howe Island Board with removal of Coastal Morning Glory and grass from the shrubs at Signal point. We helped Jack Shick with his restorations site – planting new trees and weeding previous plantings. And we had two sessions at our long-term restorations site above Middle Beach – removing vines from emerging tree saplings. This area is looking great after some 8 years of Friends working in this area.
Favourite afternoon walks included a great low tide walk at Neds Beach looking at the marine creatures; the walk to Little Island to learn about the geology and giant banyans; and the Stevens Reserve walk. Rachel Andrews, Alf Finch and Robin Rotgans did the Mount Gower walk with Jack Shick.
One weeder summed up the week “In summary the total experience of being a volunteer tourist with the Friends of Lord Howe Island has been an awesome adventure; an opportunity to learn, experience, and understand the special natural world that abounds on Lord Howe island. Social history, natural history; a veritable feast of knowledge and so fascinating for a tourist.“
