Project #3: Perth; "Native Vegetation Management"…c'mon it's weeding!!!!

My last and final project was by far the most tedious and seemingly unimportant project we could have been participating in considering all the conservation /environmental issues in Australia.Anyways J, there was a park in Fremantle, a town thirty minutes outside of Perth in which the Carnation Weed was creating havoc .Our mission was to pick each and every Carnation Weed causing the park problems, and this was no small task.

However, this park was not so much a park but more a bank between peoples gorgeous multi-million dollar homes (one of which was Russell Crowe's summer home) and the river; essentially I felt like I was doing free yard work, can anyone tell yet that I was thrilled with a week or weeding in the hot sun (at least I continue to get a fabulous farmers tan !).We were weeding to prep for tree planting, in which the neighborhood was none too pleased.The project partner informed us that they were receiving much opposition to the proposed tree planting.The project partner told us they were trying to "frame" the residents view not ruin it…HA!Well we certainly learned the homeowners viewpoints first hand as they'd be out for a daily jog/walk and ask/say things such as…"I hope you're getting paid for this pointless work", "don't let them build anything!!", "why are they doing this to us?" and one of my personal favorites, "excuse me miss, you missed a weed".

The high points of this weeding extravaganza: a.) the viewand b.) the restroom -primarily because it was a 15minute walk each way and because it was the most outrageous bathroom I'd ever used, everything was automatic from opening the door, to toilet paper coming out, to the music played in the bathroom, all the way to the alarm system!!!

Where there is a high there must be a low:a.)if the weed stem splits it oozes a lovely milk…if that special milk makes contact with your skin it causes a rash/small welts on the area that it touched, even with gloves I still had some great milk irritation on my arms b.) snakes—seeing them at the start of the trip was cool, now I'm wondering when and where I'll actually be bit due to the number of encounters I've had with the lovely creatures.C.) losing majority of the group of volunteers I'd been with the last few weeks whom provided wonderful humor and entertainment even when hot and tired, and having them replaced with new volunteers who felt the need to weed with a butter knife, average time in taking out a weed while seated with a butter knife; approximately 7-8 minutes!!!!

Now my explanation of the last project may seem a bit dramatic, but lets be real it's me telling the story and even the team leader told me we were only weeding all week because they didn't have any other projects lined up….but…..All in all it's been a fabulous time in Western Australia, primarily due to the wonderful leaders and volunteers but I've learned heaps and visited some incredible places.I'm now on to the east coast, Canberra and Sydney, for the next month!!!