Rhody bash at Lyme on Sunday 29th March 2015

What a wet day!!

Despite the forecast of rain and winds for most of the day, 5 of us turned up to meet Chris (Lead Ranger at Lyme) in the main car park. We all remembered that the hour had just gone forward and turned up at the correct time:-)

We took 3 vehicles to Knott car park, parked up and carried the tools up the steps and onto the ridge, walking towards Paddock Cottage, where we have cut back rhododendron previously.
The area was a lot clearer than on our last visit so other volunteer groups must have been busy up there in the meantime.

Despite the rain, Chris got the fire going quickly, and it wasn't long before the long, intertwined branches of rhody were being cut down and dragged nearer to the fire, where they were cut into smaller lengths to go on the fire.

Chris had brought along a couple of A-boards to say that a rhody bash was happening in Lyme today in case any members of the public wanted to join us. I was sceptical thinking that no-one would be interested on such a miserable day but how wrong was I?!  Around 11am, a lady called Lynda was walking along the ridge, saw the notice and came down to join us:-) She worked really hard, cutting, dragging and burning. She stayed long enough to join us for a mid-morning break and lunch, finally deciding she'd better go home around 2pm - we hope we'll see her again.

We packed up around 3.15pm and took the tools back to the carpark. Chris was delighted with the amount we'd done and we were chuffed that we'd managed to make such a difference on such a wet day!
Hannah, one of our members, was also delighted because completing this workday has meant that she has just squeezed in her 50hours of volunteering with us before the 31st March deadline. This means that she will shortly receive her 12month 50hour NT volunteer card with all it's benefits - yippee!

Woops - we forgot to take a group photo at the end:-(