Bush regeneration with the Friends of Tomaree NP
The Friends of Tomaree National Park is a community group who believe we can and are improving the integrity and resilience of the national park through community action. We are part of the National Parks Association (Hunter Region), who initiated our group and supports us. The NPA is a community organisation that advocates for national parks and their management. You do not need to be an NPA member to participate.
The Friends of Tomaree National Park works in partnership with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the NSW government agency who oversights our work program and supports our work operation.
We hold regular bush regeneration sessions with flexible participation, as well as community events. People participate in either or both — it is up to you.
For general information about us and broadly what we do, please go to Friends of Tomaree National Park
This month’s DATES & LOCATIONS with the Friends of Tomaree National Park
Open the sections below by clicking on the arrow ▶︎
Our groups & our regular bush regeneration dates and locations
Our Friends of Tomaree National Park currently work in four primary locations. Many Friends attend one location, some a couple of locations and others choose anywhere depending on their personal commitments. Some Friends are regular, others participate casually, when convenient.
Every contribution helps, and is really appreciated. There is no obligation — whatever suits you.
Our regular bush regeneration sessions are usually for a couple of hours in the morning. While we try to keep regular dates, occasional changes are necessary. Start times vary seasonally.
Our monthly bush regeneration sessions June – August are …
| NORTH TOMAREE: Summit, Zenith, Wreck and Box Beach areas First Tuesday Second Saturday Third Thursday | FINGAL SOUTH: Coastal Walk, south of Barry Park to Big Rocky Third Saturday Fourth Friday | CENTRAL TOMAREE: One Mile / Boat Harbour / Kingsley areas First Saturday Third Monday | SOUTH TOMAREE: Fishermans Bay / Anna Bay areas to Little Kingsley First Sunday |
| June Tues 2 Sat 13 Thurs 18 | June Sat 20 Fri 26 | June Sat 6 ~ community planting Mon 15 | June Sun 7 |
| July Tues 7 Sat 11 Thurs 16 | July Sat 18 Fri 24 | July Sat 4 Mon 20 | July Sun 5 |
| August Tues 4 Sat 8 Thurs 20 | August Sat 15 Fri 28 | August Sat 1 Mon 17 | August Sun 2 |
| September Tues 1 Sat 12 Thurs 17 | September Sat 19 Fri 25 | September Sat 5 Mon 21 | September Sun 6 |
| Contact Sue at tomaree-np-friends@npansw.org.au | Contact David at tomaree-np-friends-north@npansw.org.au | Contact Sue at tomaree-np-friends@npansw.org.au | Contact Josie at tomaree-np-friends-fbay@npansw.org.au |
Our monthly bush regeneration sessions February to May were …
| NORTH TOMAREE: Summit, Zenith, Wreck and Box Beach areas First Tuesday Second Saturday Third Thursday | FINGAL SOUTH: Coastal Walk, south of Barry Park to Big Rocky Third Saturday Fourth Friday | CENTRAL TOMAREE: One Mile / Boat Harbour / Kingsley areas First Saturday Third Monday | SOUTH TOMAREE: Fishermans Bay / Anna Bay areas to Little Kingsley First Sunday |
| Feb Tues 3 Sat 14 Thurs 19 | Feb Sat 21 Fri 27 | Feb Sat 7 Mon 16 | Feb Sun 1 |
| March Tues 3 Sat 14 Thurs 19 | March Sat 21 Fri 27 | March Sat 7 Mon 16 Sun 29 (in lieu of Easter Sat) | March Sun 1 |
| April Tues 7 Sat 11 Thurs 16 | April Sat 18 Fri 24 | April Sat 4 (Easter none) Mon 20 + Special Planting Tues 14 & Mon 29 more information | April Sun 5 (Easter none) Sun 12 |
| May Sat 2 (changed date) Tues 5 Thurs 21 | May Sat 16 Fri 22 | May Sat 9 (changed from regular date) ~ a special community planting, more information Mon 18 | May Sun 3 |
| Contact Sue at tomaree-np-friends@npansw.org.au | Contact David at tomaree-np-friends-north@npansw.org.au | Contact Sue at tomaree-np-friends@npansw.org.au | Contact Josie at tomaree-np-friends-fbay@npansw.org.au |
Our special community events at Boat Harbour
We are excited about the success of our AUTUMN PLANTING. You can find out more about this special project at restoring Boat Harbour’s entrances to the Tomaree Coastal Walk.
We held a series of community and corporate planting opportunities at each of Boat Harbour’s northern and southern entrances into the national park along the Tomaree Coastal Walk. More information and dates for our Autumn Planting.
Interested in coming to a bush regen session?
What to bring, wear or do on our sessions for a safe experience
Please wear old clothes and here’s some necessities for a safer bush experience.
- Gardening gloves (not thick leather)
- Sunhat – soft wide-brimmed for sun and tick prevention
- Old long-sleeved shirt, full-length trousers (preferably not tight stretch pants)
- Best to cover up for scratch and snake protection
- Tuck trousers into socks to help avoid ticks
- Old covered shoes
- Old rain jacket (if forecast is for occasional showers, we don’t work in heavy downpours))
- Eye protection (old glasses, old readers or sun glasses – safety glasses available)
- Glasses help protect your eyes from stick injuries. Sometimes bending over and focussing on a cut branch to paint, you tend not to notice a cut stick pointing up, so please wear eye protection.
- Avoiding and managing ticks
- Please read this presentation with reminder points below
- As above, wear long sleeves and trousers, tuck trousers into socks and into waistband, and preferably wear a wide-brimmed hat
- Spray with a DEET-containing spray (supplied) on your clothing especially hat brim, shirt collar area, cuffs, waistband and socks/shoes. Use an insect spray for skin.
- Remove a tick on you:
- use a freeze spray (such as wart off, or tick off),
- never squeeze ticks ~ allow it to fall off once dead or if totally impractical to leave for several hours once dead, remove with tweezers by depressing the surrounding skin and lifting from underneath, not squeezing the tick.
- Before your first work session, please download and read this Job Safety Analysis and at the work session we’ll ask you to sign off after a briefing. It is quite administrative but your safety is important.
Tools we use are supplied
- Cutters – secateurs, pruning saws, loppers
- Pouches – carry our tools
- Herbicide in applicator bottles.
- Sunscreen, hand sanitiser, personal insect spray (ticks & mozzies) and disinfectant wipes
- First-aid kit including tick freeze and snake bite kits.
Tried a bush regen session and interested in more?
Register with NPWS My Impact
Our Friends program is managed by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) NSW, who also provide most of our equipment. Our volunteers register on NPWS My Impact program. You may like to come to one or two work bees before registering.
There are several advantages for you to registering …
- Insurance cover when working on national parks
- Records your hours worked enabling benefits such as
- personal work shirts (issued periodically), hats and gradually other items
- training such as first aid or other if required for the work undertaken
- all parks vehicle pass (including Kosciusko NP) once you have accumulated 50 hours over 2 years
- Information on other conservation projects
- Your hours contribute to those of our Friends group enabling more support such as equipment, plants and so forth.
To register with My Impact program for the Friends of Tomaree National Park with NPWS,
please
- Go to link >> MyImpact webpage which take’s you to NPWS’s Hunter Central Coast Branch
- If you have an account, please login.
- If you do not have an account, please create one. It’s a quick process and captures some personal details. .
- Application form: NPWS- Hunter Central Coast Branch
- Please toggle Friends of Tomaree National Park
- Read and accept Volunteer Terms & Conditions
- Complete emergency contact details
- Complete compliance children 16 years or younger section (if applicable)
- If you have First Aid or Working with Children Certificates, you may like to include those also, so please have their number and expiry date handy.
- Press submit application
Once you have submitted your information, please email Sue at tomaree-np-friends@npansw.org.au so that
- we can contact you if you have not yet participated with our groups, or
- if you are already a participant we can ensure your application is accepted.
Herbicide training
After you have participated in a couple of work bees and registered and been accepted on NPWS My Impact (above), please complete the online herbicide training: As we use herbicides to cut and paint bitou and other woody weeds, NPWS/DPIE requires us to participate in online herbicide awareness training. It takes a maximum 30 mins. You can access the training via this link: http://bttr.im/ziqs7. It includes a series of short videos and multiple choice questions. If you get a question wrong, you are offered the question again until it is correct, so not too difficult.
If you’re not sure of you’re My Impact login details, or have any issues, please contact the NPWS Volunteer Coordinator Nicola on: Nicola.Booth@environment.nsw.gov.au
More information about Tomaree that may interest you …
- Coastal Dune Plants along the Tomaree Coast
- About the Friends of Tomaree National Park – an overview of our group
- Kicking the milestones for Tomaree – a dive into what we’ve achieved since starting in October 2020
- Friends of Tomaree NP on Facebook — If you’re on facebook, you may wish to like our Facebook page! Even if you are not on facebook, you can see our page and read our posts (just ignore facebook’s request to join).
Other bush regeneration information
- Want to know the “What, how and why?” of bush regeneration? Check out the Land Managers Training Manual, created by Local Land Services to guide best practice bush regeneration techniques in NSW.
- If you want to know more about identifying and treating weeds, we recommend downloading the NSW Weedwise app for iOS or Android.
Past special community activities
Some of our special regeneration events and activities
2025 dates
Join our One Mile headland Forest Regen ~ bitou management and planting.
Sat am 10 May – more info and booking
2024 dates
Coastal Forest Regen on One Mile’s Headland, Tomaree Coastal Walk
Saturday am 7th December
Following our One Mile Headland forest regen July and August bitou.management activities, and our August planting, the Friends of Tomaree National Park are inviting you to a terrific morning of bush care on Saturday 7th December — we’ll continue some bitou management further along the trail, to improve the resilience of the coastal forest. Morning only. More information and bookings go to www.ecops.au/one-mile-regen-Dec
Coastal Forest Regen on One Mile Headland, Tomaree Coastal Walk
Saturday 31 August
Following our July bitou.management activity, the Friends of Tomaree National Park are inviting you to a terrific morning of bush care — we’ll continue some bitou management, and plant in a few cleared sites — to give a helping hand to regenerate and improve the resilience of the coastal forest. From 8.30 – 11am, followed by morning tea.
You’re invited to join us to help with regenerate coastal forest at Tomaree’s One Mile Beach headland along the Tomaree Coastal walk
Bookings essential and for more information go to www.ecops.au/one-mile-august
Cleanup Australia Day in Tomaree National Park, 2024
Saturday 2 March — Box Beach, 8-10am
Join our community pick up along this dynamic beach, its rocky headlands, access roadside and walkway, and connecting bush land and trails. Bags and gloves supplied. Stay for a simple morning tea or enjoy a swim afterwards. Meet at Box Beach carpark.
Please register by emailing your name, phone and the names of others in your group to tomaree-np-friends@npansw.org.au. More event information on the Cleanup Australia site for Cleanup Box Beach
Sunday 3 March — Fishermans Beach 8.30-11.30am
Please join us for a clean up of Fishermans Bay to include it’s beautiful beach, National Park, bush walking tracks and rock platforms.
More event information and registration through the Cleanup Australia site for Cleanup Fishermans Bay, please include your name, phone and names of those in your group.
Planting the threatened native mint bush May 2024 date
In May 2022, FoTNP selected a site for planting potted cuttings of the threatened (listed Vulnerable) native mint bush, Prostanthera densa. This FoTNP planting has been one of the most successful of the plantings. Now in 2024 we’ll select another site or two and plant new cuttings. All welcome to join us. More information to come. Please register interest with Sue at tomaree-np-friends@npansw.org.au
Workbees with help from Local Land Services (LLS)
Local Land Services volunteers work on Tuesdays, giving a boost to landcare groups across the Hunter. They will join our each of our FoTNP groups to give a helping hand. Everyone is welcome to come along. These are longer mornings
- North Tomaree – Tuesday morning 2 April 2024
- Central Tomaree – Tuesday morning 14 May 2024
- South Tomaree 2024 date tbc. (LLS helped out in 2023)
2023 dates
A helping hand at Morna Point, Boat Harbour! Saturday AM 29 July 2023
Around 20 enthusiastic volunteers attended our special workbee on Saturday morning 29 July around the Morna Point (Boat Harbour) lookout area and scenic walkway along the Tomaree Coastal Walk. With wow views, wildflowers and occasional whales, this was a great spot to work on the bitou and help the coastal vegetation along the rocky headland to thrive.
We spent a couple of hours removing new bitou seedlings and some larger invading bitou from this scenic spot. Thank you everyone.
Saturday 15 April 2023 The PLANTING! Rejuvenating Kingsley Headland, Boat Harbour
Check out our recent EcoUpdate article Rejuvenating Kingsley headland, highlighting the fantastic work of the Friends of Tomaree National Park and community supporters in our efforts over the last 12 months, helping repair environmental damage on the headland leading to Kingsley Beach carpark. You can also read about the plantings and their role in rejuvenating this ecosystem.
Clean up Australia Day activities 2023
Saturday am 3 March … Box Beach area. Please contact Sue at tomaree-np-friends@npansw.org.au
Sunday am 4 March … Fishermans Bay area. Please contact Josephine at tomaree-np-friends-fbay@npansw.org.au
Crag Care at Boulder Bay Sunday 19 Feb
