Kaarakin Clean Up

It was an extremely disappointing start to the day with a turn up of only 4 people representing just 3 of  our Club’s 68 memberships.  This did not include George who, on the day, was the 4WD Associations Representative responsible for coordinating all the work – though he was also part of one of those three memberships.

A less than 5% turn up for an obligation the Club had made to do the clean up, was not a good show.  Particularly when the average age of those who did turn up was in the high 60s.
    

At 9.00 am work started. The  weeds in the area around the 4WD Association buildings were about 30 cm high so, using our gloves, buckets, kneeling pads and whatever else was needed, we got stuck into removing them by the bucket/barrow load… gradually filling the trailer. 

Fortunately there was a nice breeze blowing.  

Though as the day heated up and the breeze dropped we retreated to areas that were in the shade.

10.15 am was a welcome break for morno’s.  Even more welcome was the sumptuous feast that awaited us – put on by the Association.  This gave us the opportunity to meet and chat with some of the members of Eastern Suburbs 4WD club who were doing their bit in another area.  They had a much better turn up and were continually searching out George to get their trailer emptied.

Revived by our cuppa and feast we returned to the weeding, and raking the dry leaves, thus reducing potential fire hazard.  The leaves were continually piled onto fires that the Kaarakin staff were manning with their fire truck on stand-by.

By 12.00 noon the group was exhausted (age was starting to tell) so we decided to call it a day.  

We had by no means finished our designated area but had made good inroads and were proud of the effort we had made. You could certainly see the difference.  A few more hands would have meant that we made an excellent job of it.

Many thanks to John, Rick and Sue,  for the fantastic effort they put in, and to George who was continually running around making sure everything was going well and then stayed to rake leaves and feed the fires when the rest of us had all left.

Next time we hope a few more  members will make an effort to help.  

The club is committed to the 4WD Association for 2 cleanups per year – this is for all members  not just a few,  as well as qualifying as a ‘trip’ for those prospective members wanting to earn their entry.