“The best creek in southeast Queensland” the real estate agent called it when we were looking for a property just over 30 years ago.  And we’ve had plant of reason to agree.

Running Creek in flood with part of our rainforest (i.e. on Araucaria property)  in the background

It plunges over a 100m waterfall in the western slopes of Lamington National Park, and never stops flowing.  Even late in the 10-year drought we went through in the late 90’s, we’d be swimming in over 2 metres of water, listening to the water flowing over the rocks just upstream (reduced to a gentle trickle instead of the rapids we usually use as a ‘spa-bath’ by wedging ourselves between the rocks, but still travelling), and thinking ‘hey, this is a drought, isn’t it?’  Most other creeks in the district had dried up altogether or were now a series of disconnected ponds. In major  flood times though it surges like an angry ocean, tossing trees and boulders, demolishing bridges and cutting road access, sometimes for over a week.

The Araucaria property lies at the foot of Mt Chinghee (Bung Bung to the Aboriginals), several kilometres downstream from the Lamington National Park in  the Scenic Rim, Southeast Queensland, with just a few cattle properties in between. Mt Chinghee National Park mostly harbours seasonally dry rainforest (with moister rainforest  – more palms, ferns, mosses etc. – at its summit), and from it two tributaries flow through our property into Running Creek. Much of Mt Chinghee National Patrk has been separated from Running Creek to the south and Christmas Creek to the north by clearing for cattle-grazing, so our property is one of the few where forest continues to the creek, allowing rainforest creatures ready access and thus providing something of a wildlife corridor between the creek and the national park.

Darren (swinging the scythe) and one of our WWOOFers (WillingWorkers On Organic Farms) tackling lantana

We had already received a grant from the Scenic Rim Regional Council  to separate the major part of our rainforest regeneration from the horse-grazing area, but one of the tributaries to Running Creek was left out of this. This year we received a dollar-for-dollar grant from Southeast Queensland Catchments to protect this gully. It also allowed us to separate the horse-grazing into several paddocks so horses can be rotated, resting areas that need it and helping to control weeds.

Work included clearing lantana to make way for the fence, hammering in fence posts, stringing the electric fencing (better for the wildlife than barbed wire), installing gates and an extra water tank, and recording baseline observations of fauna and flora along the length of the fencing for future monitoring.

101 posts have been numbered, along Pademelon Path, Wallaby Way and Goanna Gully, and detailed vegetation notes recorded at each of these. We’re hoping to see an increase in rainforest species over the years to come.

Morgan watches as Denis erects a new gate

Looking from one of the grazing areas towards the gully with regenerating forest (eucalypts at edge, rainforest trees, shrubs and vines deeper into july). A pile of cleared lantana can be seen in the foreground

All 101 of the new posts are numbered so we can monitor fauna and flora changes over the years

Driving through new gate up Pademeon Path on the Araucaria property, Mt Chinghee National Park in background