Parks Victoria would like to thank the efforts of the Kurth Kiln Friends, for the fantastic job of promoting the Park and setting up all the diverse Friends Group activities at the Friendship Festival at Kurth Kiln on the 17^th & 18^th May 2003.

Meinhard and Hilda Holtz, Alfred and Ursula, Klink, Riet and Henk Bouck, Ken and Dawn Banks, Rhonda and Harry Stevens, Pam and Jim McNabb and a big thank you to Dick Cleary and Kerri Bonica, and Rosemary Beth Rem.

The Corrals are finished too! Fantastic effort on the Saturday and the enthusiasm shown was wonderful especially when it rained. Special thanks to Darren (On site supervisor), Dick and Ken and people, who participated at different times and days, every bit helps to make the project a success.

The next project is to get a master plan for the picnic grounds and the surrounding areas around the Kurth Kiln. I certainly encourage everyone to participate in the process and I will keep the group informed.

John Morrison Parks Victoria wants to meet the Kurth Kiln Friends Group, with the idea of money coming our way, through a heritage maintenance grant.

Kurth Kiln is a magnificent regional park, which covers 3500 hectares. As well as having walking tracks and picnic areas it has unique heritage value. On site is a historic brick charcoal kiln which was used in the 1940s during war time. There are historic buildings and sheds, which were used on Sunday for a highly effective and most entertaining re-enactment of a bank robbery, complete with horses, police and a terrified bank clerk.

I am certain that the Friends of Kurth Kiln have distinct and previously unrecognized acting talents. Despite the soggy weather, all participants had a wonderful time.

I was fortunate enough to purchase a beautiful purple scarf hot off the knitting needles, and I was also able to find a talented craftsperson who can make hats out of the hair of Alaskan Malamute dogs, so now I know what to do with the hair I scrape off my couch from my Alaskan Malamute.

This friendship festival, coming at the conclusion of Volunteer Week, is an apt recognition of the efforts that volunteers make to maintain and enhance community assets such as this park. I commend the friends for their enormous contribution of time and effort, as well as their ideas and resources, which preserves this unique kiln and its surrounds.

THE BROAD-TOOTHED RAT,  by Donna Clark

Size and Identification: Head body length: 140-175mm: Tail length: 100-130mm. This species is very similar in appearance to the Swamp Rat, but can be distinguished from Swamp Rats by redder fur and a rounder, more broad head and face. It has an almost fluffy appearance, dark feet and a very sweet disposition. The Broad-toothed Rat has soft, silky, thick fur, and its name is based on the size of its molars. This species also has a layer of fat behind its neck, which helps to give it a broad looking head. The Broad-toothed Rat can also be distinguished based on the bright green, fibrous poo that it produces, based on its diet of sedges and grasses.

Range and Habitat: The Broad-toothed Rat can be found in small sections of Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania. It lives in alpine and subalpine heathland areas, open eucalypt woodlands, in clearings with thick undergrowth in wet forests and in wet sedgelands. The populations of Broad-toothed Rat are restricted to optimum habitat, which contributes to their conservation status of near threatened.

Food Requirements: Broad-toothed Rat feed mostly on grasses and sedges. It is also known to eat seeds, leaves and bark.

THE FRIENDS OF BUNYIP STATE PARK, by Anne Marsden

The Big Gums of Beenak

By 1860's reports began to filter back into the colonies of gigantic gum trees growing to astounding proportions deep within the mountains being opened up by the timber getters. Ferdinand Von Muller classified the gum tree- Eucalyptus regnans meaning "ruling" or "reigning" of the Victorian forest.

Until its devastation in the bush fire of 1926 the mills of Beenak worked the great tracks of tall mountain ash forest drawing large sums of timber from the Bunyip, Tomahawk and surrounding catchments when in 1928 most of the country had been logged and the mill closed. Only scant information on the giant gums has remained to the present day. In 1918 AD Hardy, F.L.S. State Forests - reflects on the remarkable upward growth of the Blue Range trees: "Another which I personally measured with clinometer and tape, in the Beenak Ranges, was 290 feet, with a girth of only 18 feet at 5 feet from the ground. This tree had very slight buttresses. Near the source of the Bunyip another tree had only 4 feet diameter and a height of 260 feet. F.W. Halls in "Regarding Tall Trees" writes ..."past Giants, at Tomahawk Valley, Beenak during 1930's average girth of a dozen trees 15.5 metres at ground level"

On October 1967, Mr. J Westcott, District Forester at Kallista reported; " A Mountain Ash tree was recently felled in the Gembrook forest which measured 315 feet in height and 28 feet in girth at stump height of 5 feet. This tree, which measured 310 feet above the height of the stump, had to be felled by S.E.C. contractors as part of the route of the Hazelwood-South power line.

In the present day the reduced Mountain Ash areas are regrowth from the great fires of the past and have retreated to the sheltered gullies and waterways. The effects of whole scale logging, land clearing and catastrophic bush fire have incurred permanent changes. Two bush fires sweeping th same area within a twenty year period will kill the regrowth and destroy a Mountain Ash stand forever.

The reduction of forest cover over the last century has lead to an alteration in the microclimate of the ranges. Ridges upon which once stood tall stands of wet sclerophylls Mountain Ash have been replaced by smaller dry-forest species. Consequently lowering the forest canopy and a reduction of retaining moisture to protect against top-damaging winds and increased vulnerability to drying and forest fire.

Such are the factors which have lead to the decreased population and the disallowance of the forest to provide suitable environment for the great heights which the Mountain Gums once sawed.

We’re having an absolute ball here working for the Tenkile Conservation Alliance. The landscape here is absolutely amazing and the wildlife simply blows you away. There are no foxes or feral cats here (none that we’ve seen) and the majority of the vegetation is still intact. There’s been no logging or noisy dirt bikes where we are so it is really peaceful and quiet.

Our job is to try and save the critically endangered Scott’s Tree Kangaroo, Dendrolagus Scottae (or Tenkile) from become extinct. The pressure on this animal is hunting by man. Many of the villages that are within the range of the Tenkile have now agreed not to hunt it by signing a moratorium. So far we’ve held meetings with the villagers, going over our aims and objectives. They are very happy that we are here and want to help. They are also interested in getting work and money out of us as well.

In total we’ll be working with at least 3000 people. My job is Project Manager, which involves anything from research work to first aid. My main aim is to establish a research site where we will conduct Distance Sampling.

Distance Sampling is a field research technique that determines the population of a species. It is thought that as few as 100 Tenkile remain in the wild – and there are no animals in captivity. The animal was first described by Tim Flannery in 1990 and is now only known to inhabit elevations above 900m in the Torricelli Mountains of the Sanduan Province – PNG. The Tenkile is dark-brown to black in colour and can weigh up to 12 kg.

My wive Jean’s job is Education Officer. She will be concentrating on visiting all of the schools, assisting with science lessons and spreading the word of conservation. We will also be starting rabbit farming up here so that we are providing an alternative source of protein. That is, hopefully down the track, people will eat rabbits (bred in captivity) and not go and hunt everything that moves in the bush.

So far we’ve been inundated with people bringing us animals to sell. We’ve had many birds brought to us that have been maimed by slingshots as well as a dwarf cassowary and several snakes. At the moment we have a pet Green Tree Python and a Pacific Ground Boa. We don’t by any animals, but offer to treat animals if they are sick or injured. If we offered to buy animals we would have every man and his dog bringing us stuff.

We are based in a bush hut that is made from local timbers. The hut is on stilts so is a bit rocky. We share this house with plenty of cockroaches and rats. There is no electricity, hot water, TV or a fridge, so we live pretty basic. We have recently acquired and assembled a solar kit – so we have some lights, can charge our batteries and use our laptop. We’ve seen lots of Birds of Paradise,

Eclectus Parrots, Fig Parrots, Lories etc. and are constantly getting at the book to identify things.

Overall this job is very exiting, rewarding and interesting. We’ll be here for quite a while yet, I think. Hope to see you all when we come back for a visit. Have fun and say hello to the Helmeted Honeyeaters for me.

THE PROTOTYPE CHARCOAL KILN IN TASMANIA  by Dorothy Kurth (Memories from six decades ago)

The charcoal kiln built in southern Tasmania in the late nineteen thirties was the first of the new kilns built. It was situated at the Settlement Road Forestry Camp near Dover. Searches made a few years ago by those familiar with the area and who remembered the kiln were unable to find any trace of it. The kiln was of similar design to that in Kurth Kiln Park, only smaller.

THE STORY OF THE HILLAS  Reflections by Bill and Lorna Parker

Vic Hillas became the Forest Commission Officer in Charge in Gembrook about 50 years ago. His father was the Butcher at Mc Arthur in the Western District where Vic learnt the trade. At the age of 18 Vic came up to enlist for the Second World war, his first visit to Melbourne.

During service in the Middle East Vic was taken prisoner when Greece fell to the Germans. He served nearly four years as a prisoner of war in Germany. During that period he volunteered to work in the forest. In Germany the villagers plant many pine forests with a view to earn more for improvements in the towns. Unfortunately for them the government acquired the plantations for war purposes and the POW’s (guarded by German guards) cut the trees down, the suitable logs for timber and the remainder for firewood. All the villagers got was the very small branches and the pine needles, nothing was wasted. The women of the village collected the wood scraps, and often, when the guards weren’t looking, gave the prisoners some bread, and in turn the prisoners would hide some bigger branches in the cover of the pine needles. Vic was a very bright chap and picked up enough of the language to converse with the Germans. After one of his several attempts to escape he was given two weeks of solitary confinement. He said that was the worst experience he ever had.

Vic was so impressed with the life in the forest that on his return to Australia after the war he did Forestry under Rehab and became a Forest Officer and in time was appointed to Gembrook. He and his wife Kath started coming to St. Silas Church in Gembrook where Lorna and I met them. Our two wives discovered they had been through Teachers College together and both School-Teachers, so the four of us became very good friends.

When the Hillas’ eldest boy started at the Gembrook School I had been Secretary on the School Committee for 3 years. I invited Vic to come on the committee and he became Secretary for the next 3 years and I became President. We had a very good committee and one day decided to build a basketball court at the school. So Vic got the forestry bulldozer (the Forest Commission was well equipped with Bulldozer, Grader and Tip-Truck as they put in a lot of new roads) to scrape up a big heap of sand at the sand pit at the triangle which is down on Tonimbuk Road. The members of the School Committee decided to have a Saturday working bee.

Vic organised a forestry truck with driver and Russell (who then had the hardware store in Gembrook) lent us another tip truck, again with driver, for the day. A good crew of us equipped with shovels loaded the trucks by hand so fast the two trucks were flat out carting the sand to the school. The trucks would dump their loads and we had two men spreading it and managed to get the whole surface covered on the day. Vic was one of the hardest workers and he thought it was a great day.

A carpenter on the committee put up some of the first playing equipment for the children.

Later on with the aid of the Education Department we had the bitumen surface put on it and we erected the two poles.

I own the paddock next to the school, and when I see the children at school I think of the hundreds of children that have since got pleasure from it. G. (Bill) Parker