St Leonards Community Environment Day
It was a beautiful Sunday morning on 9 July when almost 30 local community members gathered at Miller Boys Memorial to engage in some winter planting with Bellarine Bayside. With the weather turning it on, our enthusiastic volunteers made light work of getting 600 plants in the ground. A range of different species were planted including:
- Coast Spear-grass (Austrostipa flavescens)
- Coast Beard-heath (Leucopogon parviflorus)
- Sweet Bursaria (Bursaria spinosa)
- Common Boobialla (Myoporum insulare), and
- Coast Tussock-grass (Poa poiformis).
After planting was completed we were treated to a very, knowledgeable and insightful talk by Dr Peter Munster on the Miller boys, William Buckley and his time with the local Wathaurong people, and general St Leonards history. Dr Munster is a local historian who was awarded an Order of Australia medal (OAM) in June 2013 for ‘service to the community, particularly through the preservation of the history of St. Leonards’. Peter’s knowledge on the local area is unmatched and his enthusiasm is contagious.
The Miller Boys Memorial is a rock cairn located on Bluff Road, St Leonards commemorating the drowning of two brothers on 1 September 1942. The cairn is said to have been erected from volcanic rocks collected on the beach by the boys’ mother. The cairn was constructed after a search failed to find the boys bodies. This memorial has the added importance of being the only tangible remaining evidence of the boys as there are no graves.
This was the first of our local Community Environment Days for 2017. Our next Community Day will be held at Pt Richards Flora and Fauna Reserve on National Tree Day, Sunday 30 July.
