Bushwalk Australia

G’day all,

Anybody done the standard K2K of late?

Wondering what the state of play is out that way concerning weeds etc.

Ta, Dingo.

Given Katoomba is in Greater Sydney (according to the Covid lockdown) and Kanangra is part of Oberon Council, I assume this is only hypothetical. Walking this route is illegal and would come with a substantial fine based on the current restrictions. Hopefully that changes soon, but I wouldn't be planning to do it for at least a month, based on current infection numbers.

Haha!!! Although this post was based in the hypothetical I wish they also ran a TAB on expected answers. because I would have put my house on the first response being of the dire warnings of border breaching and the fines associated within.

Which is fair enough and all true, still I wouldn’t mind a track update from BEFORE covid hit so I can plan for future endeavours.

keen to read any updates aswell, plan to do this in spring sometime

From what I have seen on friends' posts, somewhat overgrown. But mainly natives by the looks of it!

I was out at Kanangra a couple of months back - there was a lot of regrowth. Unpleasant but not unmanageable.

You and me both!!

Crickets at the moment...

Dual posting Tom as above.

You would have to think that scrub would be considerably worse with the lockdowns preventing any foot traffic through?...although those frosty mornings would account for some weeds.

Once you get away from the rivers, you're not generally looking at weeds - mainly natives. And along the rivers, the weeds probably got wiped out by the floods in March - not sure how much they will have come back over winter. This was certainly the case back in May at Orange Bluff. See http://bushwalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... 76#p414680

On the south/east facing tops, you will probably get head high forests of Calomeria (Incense Plants) in places. This was the case below First Top and below Brumby Mountain.

Also, lots of new eucalypts popping up on the high/rocky tops, as there is lots more light, and probably some of them have seeds that are smoke activated. This was the case on First Top and on Brumby Mountain.

And then in the saddles you get general quartzite scrub - I can't remember what exactly. Acacias, maybe Indigoferas.

This was all out towards the Kowmung, but given the terrain towards the Coxs is similar, I'd expect similar conditions. Just makes for slow going in certain places.

Thanks Tom - been going nuts trying to work out what Calomeria was. As you note, it is forming miniature forests in sheltered gullies following the fires. I have never seen thickets of it like I have recently encountered, even following previous fires in the same locations. Also astonished to learn it is an endemic native - have never seen a weedier looking plant in my life. The term 'fire weed' is often used to describe some Australian natives, but this one dead set fits the bill.

Good info guys

So that’s what those weeds are. I see signage on a lot of rural properties around here advising others to “control your fire weed”

I must say though, as far as scrub goes it’s not the worst to push through....

There are lots of things that get called fire weed.

What you'd be seeing signage for is totally different. The plant farmers would be warning about is Senecio madagascariensis, which is an introduced species that is toxic and can kill cattle.

https://weeds.dpi.nsw.gov.au/Weeds/Details/53

Right, that makes sense. Didn’t think I’d ever seen that native plant in any grazing paddock I’ve been in on.

Mate and I did Kanangra to Katoomba back in April (2021). Some sections in the middle had regrowth like walking through a sugar cane or corn field. Really tough to stay on course through this but we both had GPS's. Cox River was a mess - fallen trees from flooding - but there were plenty of areas to camp. Mice were a minor problem camping at Cox River and Medlow gap. One burrowed under my mates tent, chewed through the tent floor and got into his food bag.

BTW We noticed the cows at Cox river too. Anyone know how they get in there? It seems too remote and inaccessible.

Bashed their way in from farms upstream I'd guess. With their body mass they are like tanks.

Also for a short window after flooding and fires the area would be much more accessible.

Butchers Creek (and Green Wattle) on the other side of Scotts Main Range is full of cows, horses, pigs and goats. By 'full' I mean hundreds of them. There is *&%$#! everywhere, really. (Personal observation of all 4 species!) It is dead easy for them to walk up a spur onto Scotts and down into the Kowmung. Parks clean them out of the Kowmung at times, but that is hard work and costs $$. Mind you, they get hundreds of the animals, which must return some $$. Once in the Kowmung they just walk down the river to the Coxs, and then head upstream. There is nothing to stop them.

All of which makes the WaterBoard restrictions on walkers look really stupid. But I suspect some of the local WaterBoard employees are careful to not let Head Office know about their private farming operation. After all, there is nothing to stop the local WaterBoard staff from running a cattle truck out from Yerranderie every now and them. Agist the animals at a local farm for a week or two, deworm them, brand them, and then off to the abattoir. A nice little business. (And the WaterBoard pays for the truck!)

Could some come from up-river as well? Don't know, but I suspect the farmers up-river would be a shade more careful to not lose their stock, as that costs them.

Cheers
Roger

It wouldn’t be unusual for the farmers up-stream to “lose” their stock occasionally in the dryer month’s into the greener flats. Not hard mustering along the river.

puredingo wrote:It wouldn’t be unusual for the farmers up-stream to “lose” their stock occasionally in the dryer month’s into the greener flats. Not hard mustering along the river.

More plausible than a water board agriculture conspiracy

Sent from my SM-G977B using Tapatalk

I've certainly heard stories of pot plantations found in the exclusion zone, down close to the water. The theory was the Water NSW staff were involved as they could harvest from the lake. Not much chance of them being found, and no one was going to report them given you faced a big fine yourself for being in the exclusion zone.