Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Burnt Banksia's


Today we went to see what the fires in Flinder's Chase had done. We really wanted to go to Cape Borda and Harvey's Return as we have never been down to that far end before.
No sign of fires as we went along the main central road, and not until we got to the Chase did we see it, and then mostly on one side of the road, but there you could see hectares and hectares of burnt scrub.
It even went around the front of the Cape Borda lighthouse.
I have seen the aftermath of many fires but what really got me was the look of the Banksia's with their candles blackened on the blackened bushes. They however are the lucky ones, they need fire to regenerate.There were tales from the fishermen around the coast of dead kangaroos for miles out around that end of the Island as they were driven to the cliffs by the fire. I hate to think of the small birds, lizards etc that didnt make it as almost all of Flinders Chase was burnt and that is a huge area of National Park on the end of the Island.

1 comment:

Keith said...

Sounds terrible, Penny. I happened to do an ink mess of a fisherman last night. He looks like he might have been the one bringing back tales from the cliffs.