April 12, 2016
The banks of Yarraman Creek will be a bit busier than usual this week as they’re playing host to visitors who’ll be coming to see what a healthy waterway actually looks like.
The Friends of Yarraman Creek (FYC), a volunteer group which patiently restored the formerly overgrown and rubbish-strewn creek that flanks Errol Munt Park, have planned three activities to celebrate “Connect To Your Creek Week”.
Connect To Your Creek Week kicked off last Saturday with FYC president Kerry Wyvill’s “Class Of 59” reunion.
This reunion took members of Yarraman State School’s class of 1959 for a stroll along the creek banks, partly to show them the results of the group’s work, and partly to draw out their own memories of the creek as it was more than half a century ago.
This Thursday (April 14) FYC will be hosting a lunchtime walk with a group of 16 students from Yarraman P-9 State School.
The students helped in the final stages of the creek’s rehabilitation last September, and had their work officially acknowledged by Toowoomba Regional Council last December with a special sign mounted on the bridge that connects the northern end of Errol Munt Park to the Yarraman Sports Fields on the opposite bank.
The students will be able to see how the native plants they put in early last Spring have grown over the summer, then share their thoughts about the sort of future they’d like to see for their town’s creek over an ice-cream cake.
The week will be capped off on Saturday (April 16) when a group of 30 field naturalists from Toowoomba stay in Yarraman for the weekend to inspect the creek.
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Connect to Your Creek Week is an annual awareness raising event run by Healthy Waterways, a not-for-profit group that works to protect and improve south east Queensland’s creeks and rivers.
They believe waterways are an integral part of the Queensland lifestyle and economy, but with a rapidly growing population and an unpredictable climate, waterways are under increasing pressure from threats such as soil erosion, stormwater run-off, litter and land clearing.
Last year, Healthy Waterways gave the Upper Brisbane River catchment – which includes most of the southern portion of the South Burnett – a ‘D’ grade in their annual report to the State Government.
But they made special mention of Yarraman Creek as one of the catchment’s waterways which has bucked the trend.
FYC share the same view about the importance of healthy Australian waterways.
That’s why their members put in six years of back-breaking volunteer work to rehabilitate a substantial strip of a creek that has always played a pivotal role in Yarraman’s history, both for its original indigenous inhabitants and the European settlers who arrived much later.
FYC spokesperson Susan Reilly said the group was always very happy to share the lessons they learned from reviving Yarraman Creek with any other like-minded group or individuals who might be considering rehabilitating their own local waterways.
The group can be contacted by phoning Susan or her husband Scott on (07) 4163-8567, or through the Friends Of Yarraman Creek’s Facebook page.
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