Protecting the Painkalac Valley: Addressing Environmental Challenges
The Painkalac Valley faces several environmental challenges that threaten its delicate ecosystem. Here are some key concerns:
- Sedimentation: Soil erosion washes into the creek and estuary, causing murky water and harming plant and animal life.
- Weed Invasion: Non-native plants like Boneseed, Blackberry, and Bluebell Creeper crowd out native vegetation, reducing biodiversity and habitat for native species.
- Water Quality Concerns: Faecal contamination from various sources can pose a health risk to recreational users.
- Land Use Impacts: Intensive farming practices in the catchment area can reduce vegetation cover, leading to a decline in biodiversity and a decrease in water quality by reducing natural filtration.
- Disrupted Water Flows: Changes in freshwater availability from the reservoir and increased stormwater runoff from drains can disrupt the estuary’s natural cycle and cause flooding.
- Coastal Threats: Rising sea levels and increased wave surge threaten the coastline and potentially alter the estuary’s shape and form.
- Unnatural Openings: Artificial openings of the estuary mouth, if not carefully managed, can further disrupt the natural cycle.
- Acidic Drainage: Distillery Creek’s acidic water after heavy rainfall events can negatively impact the estuary’s delicate balance.
- Feral animals: Foxes, rabbits and cats can cause havoc with our indigenous fauna and flora through predation, grazing, burrows/dens causing habitat destruction and disruption of the food chain
- Climate change: Increased frequency and intensity of bushfires and storms, changes in rainfall patterns, ocean acidification and rising water temperatures can all have cascading negative impacts on the health of the estuary ecosystem
By understanding these pressures, we can work together to develop solutions and protect the Painkalac Valley for generations to come.
If you are interested, there are a number of groups you can join that work together to revive and maintain the Painkalac from source to ocean. These include:
- Friends of the Hooded Plover Surf Coast
- Friends of Allen Noble Sanctuary
- Angair
- Aireys Inlet and District Association
- Painkalac EstuaryWatch
- Friends of Aireys Inlet Valley and Coastal Reserve (contact: Roger Ganly – rganly8@bigpond.com, Ph 040950248)
- Artificial estuary openings (contacts: Liz Wood and Bron Ives)
- Swimmable Painkalac (contacts: Kim Neubecker and Barb Hammond – barbara.hammond@veridica.com)
- Wilding the Valley
Continue on River Reserve Road and follow the path to the bottom shops where a sign with a QR code can be found on the bridge side of Onda (number 6 on the map).
Alternatively, you head north on River Reserve Road (up along the Painkalac Creek) then turn right up River Road. Carefully cross the Great Ocean Road at the island then follow the path past the wooden Owl sculpture, and over the board walk through the Allen Noble Sanctuary, where there are signs with two QR codes directing you to separate walks that you could explore during this walk or at another time.
Lookout for Buckley’s Bunyip carved from the residual stump of an introduced cypress tree. It celebrates the story of escaped convict William Buckley, who claimed to have seen a bunyip. It features bird life, insects, weather, myths and history of the wetlands.
Continue up Inlet Crescent past the Bark Hut Reserve, where you can read more about settler history in the Bark Hut. The Bark Hut is a reproduction of the typical hut built by the early white settlers to the region. The original Bark Hut was burnt down in the 1903 bushfires, reminding us that the Surf Coast is a high risk area for bushfires in the summer.
The next sign with a QR code is on a post on the left side of the track next to the toilet block (number 1 on the map).