Changes afoot

It’s planting time again. Volunteers at the SOSSI nursery have once again raised thousands of seedlings and a truckload more has arrived from the Botanic Gardens, so we have 15,000 waiting to get their roots down. Upcoming public planting days are on July 14 and 21 (see What’s On for details). Regulars might remember the rock-hard clay we had to contend with a few years ago but recent rain has softened the ground a lot – more than we’d like in some places. The planting site this year is right up the valley from the campground so transport will be provided from the road. The event on July 14 will be a special one as it will also include displays and performances to celebrate Matariki, organised by Whangaparaoa Community Hub. Watch for further information on our facebook page and in Hibiscus Matters.
Besides the new plantings, the entrance to the park area is getting attention in some other ways too. As the sanctuary matures, its bird population should grow and eventually birds will start to spread outside it. Hibiscus Coast Forest & Bird has done a terrific job of anticipating this and managing pest control right along the peninsula,  both to protect the sanctuary and to make it safer for birds to leave it. In addition the wetland area just outside the pest-proof fence, but still inside the park, has a very intense program of trapping. Now we are hoping to complement this by enlisting the help of immediate neighbours with a Shakespear Backyard Project to provide them with traps and advice on how best to use them, starting with those adjacent to the park. The overall idea is that the risk to pests keeps increasing the closer they get to the sanctuary, and with time we will all be rewarded by more birds in our gardens.
There will also be some improvements to signs at the park entrance. A friend of mine recently visited Shakespear for the first time and afterwards said how much she had enjoyed it but it was a pity that there were no bush walks. It is easy to see how this happens – the entrance does have a sign to Waterfall Gully but no indication that this is a bush walk. Auckland Council agrees that the directions to various sites of interest in the sanctuary need to be upgraded, and has now undertaken to improve signs at the entrance.
Finally Waterfall Gully itself is getting an upgrade in the form of a new ‘hygiene station’ for disinfecting footwear. This is part of the plan to lessen the risk of transmitting kauri dieback disease, which will also involve installing two other stations and upgrading tracks so they do not become muddy. Over winter you may find some tracks are closed in the meantime, so this is why. Please be patient and respect the closures (or better still come and help with the upgrades).