‘Treat with Euphrasia bad memory and vertigo’
Gibson’s Folly - Earth Moving: the precipitous track descends to Wilga portal and the Tambo Purple eyebright ringed around closely in heathy dry forest lilac, pink or white ‘it comes and goes’ but when it’s gone, gladness goes with it the yellow spot behind the lower lobe a guide to pollinating insects
Rock Ore Base metals Copper & zinc: The Wilga and Currawong massive sulphide deposits are hosted within deformed Upper Silurian volcanics and sediments of the Gibsons Folly Formation Other prospects: Dogwood, Mopoke, Big Hand, Banksia, Peppermint, Boxer And Nameless But Bigfoot may bear GOLD the richest of all
High Noon The Waxlip Anomaly – a magnetic high at 12000N 15300E on the Wilga Grid Tested by diamond drill but no significant mineralisation was intersected Waxlip Spur, site of the old Benambra mine processing plant, an acid seep runs down to the Tambo River & high flows shall dilute the heavy metals 43 species of orchids were discovered in the area including the purple waxlip Glossodia major which forms no roots and depends upon mycorrizal fungi for nutrition I run up the bare clay spur to the helipad with a view beyond the failed revegetation into rugged country from Mt Tambo to the Nunniong escarpment
Wilga Spring Beside the Tambo a natural spring issuing sulphides is a blind for heavy metal seepage from the tailings dam on Straight Creek upstream. The small town of Swift’s Creek draws off its water supply 30 kilometres down river.
Horse Riding with Gibson via the Bundara Up through Charlie Mac’s to the Bogongs To lay down salt in trap-yards Under the dappled sunlight of snow gums Late spring snowdrifts and dark shadows Replicate the flanks of piebald horses * Leaping the shallow stream At the base of the tailings dam spillway Last remnant of the rarest swamp Sphagnum moss, strawberry buttercups Sun orchids and bluebells Trampled by hooves gone feral across the Alps
SPZ 633 Blue-tongue greenhood and sprawl of knawel at the foot of the dam wall - in their own zone rare companions among Sphagnum moss: montane grass-trigger plant alongside dusky violet when the dam wall is raised twice the height ‘they were so elusive’
Mountain banksia High on the dry ridge cylindrical yellow flowers of Banksia canei nectar licked by eastern pygmy possums and feathertail gliders and honeyeaters chasing Grevillia, Corea and Callistemon and thirteen species of Eucalypt around the slopes all year over look the turquoise dam waters: 700,000 tonnes of In the steep headwaters valley soon to be flooded more deeply mine tailings: copper, zinc, cadmium, lead, arsenic, manganese, antimony lying under absence of euphrasey, blue-tongue, sprawling, and all those precious others viol-ate under dam waters Sphagnum cristatum and manifold springs along the creek bed the dam leaks down through rock, another 7 million tonnes to be dumped, vertigo in Lake St Barbara: by her name poisonous waters are rendered innocuous
