Fence removals at Charles Darwin

Annie and Ian Mayo have just completed an epic volunteer project for us in the West – a fence-pulling tour of our reserves in the Western Rangelands.

Having pulled down fences at Hamelin Station Reserve and Eurardy Reserve, they led a fence removal working bee at Charles Darwin Reserve last week. William Hansen (Reserve Manager) said it was a brilliant week where a lot was achieved. All volunteers – new, old, young and not so young – pulled their weight, removing more fencing than anyone had expected.

Elisabeth McLellan (Healthy Landscapes Manager, Western Rangelands) commented, "removing old fences is a seemingly never-ending task on our reserves and we're so grateful to Ian and Annie and all the other volunteers who do this essential task so willingly and happily. Driving down a track with no fence wire after volunteers have removed it, is a wonderful feeling".

Here's Annie's blog about the week:

When Ian and I offered to visit Charles Darwin Reserve and pull out fences for a week, we thought we’d be on our own with a few kilometres of fence. But the new Reserve Manager Will Hansen had other ideas. Next thing we knew, he and Jo Axford had organised extra volunteers, with us in charge of instructing them on the art of fence pulling.

What a willing and hard-working crew they turned out to be!

We had Andréa who was on long service leave, Jacqui and Murray who had taken time off work and Steve who, like us, was retired.

After a few lessons on how to safely cut and roll barbed and plain wire; remove droppers and posts and stack everything ready for later collection, they were off.

On the second day, Will took over babysitting duties for son Hamish while his wife Olivia came and joined us for the morning. Ian and I stuck around for a while until we realised they were perfectly fine without us and went off to pull out some old mustering yards.

On the third morning Murray competently manoeuvred the ute with a large trailer, and with everyone helping all was picked up. By the end of the day nearly 5km of fence, star pickets, and a stack of weldmesh and wire from two the yards was all neatly deposited at the tip.

We were rewarded that night with a great BBQ courtesy of Bush Heritage, Will and Olivia, while Hamish was passed around for hugs and cuddles. All in all it was a very productive working bee with a new group of volunteers who now know how to easily, and safely pull out old fences.