Gawler - Volunteer ranger at Para Wirra

Howdy partners,
Today I got up in time to be ready to be picked up by a South Australian National Wildlife Park Ranger! If that doesn't sound cool I don't know what does :-) Meryl is a friend of Heidi and offered me last week that I could come along with her for a day. So we drove to the Para Wirra Recreation Park in the Southeast of Gawler. She is one of two rangers there for six weeks now. So Meryl herself has to get used to the park. Para Wirra comes from an Aboriginal phrase meaning "river with scrub".

I got to know the other park ranger Steve and two other volunteers who come on an regular basis, Leonie and Rachel. Meryl, Leonie, Rachel and I first drove around the park to change a chain and a lock at one of the gates and then down a very rough track with a very steep hill where Meryl used the 4-wheel-drive of the park jeep (Meryl lend me her camera to take pictures).

 Meryl managed really well as I would have not believed us to go up that hill. Especially as it was wet due to a heavy rainfall during the last night and the clouds haven't completely cleared away, so we expected more rain during the day. During the two-hour drive I asked lots of questions about the park, the trees and animals and what duties park rangers have to do. This recreation park is in comparison to National Park more about being useful to the community by providing the facilities for parties (like birthdays or weddings or sport events). We saw some kangaroos hopping by and some rare birds. After that we had to refuel the two park jeeps and then it was already lunch time. Rachel left and Meryl had to do some other things in her office before going to a meeting together with Steve. So Leonie took me on a track-checking-tour. It means that we walk along the tracks, weed what should not be growing there and report hazards and other odd findings.

While we walked on the track it rained several times for a few minutes but luckily it wasn't cold. Due to the heavy rainfall and the strong winds of last night a few big branches and a tree have come down on the track.

Leonie explained to me in much detail how and why tracks or part of tracks need to be closed and re-directed and how they do it. She showed me different plants and why other plants need to be weeded. As I have learned so far in Australia the import of foreign (mostly European) animals, trees and plants has threathened the native flora, fauna and animals. It is very hard work to get the Australian natural diversity back to work on its own.

This area has been used for different other things in the past like mining or housing or the army. It has been bought off the South Australian Government over 50 years ago. Most work can only be executed through the help of volunteers.
We went along a track named Lizard Rock Walk and here you can see the rock which looks like a lizard. Can you see it?

Then we walked down one part of the Hissey Loop Walk to the Para Wirra Lake where we heard some birds but I was not able to take a good picture of one as they were very high up in the trees.

After about two hours at 4pm we made it back to the office just in time to see two emus walking across the road (but it rained quite a lot, so I did not take the camera out). I filled in the rest of the paperwork and then everyone closed the office. I learned so much today, I could honestly not repeat it all in this post. I would have loved to come back here again to help and learn more. On our way back to Heidi's place we also saw a koala. YEAH!

Back at Heidi's place we had some nice dinner together and she gave me the contact details of her friend Tim who I will be staying with from tomorrow at my well-known next stop: Melbourne!
Yours volunteer-ranger Stefanie