Popular beach given a much-needed makeover

MORE than 200kg of rubbish was painstakingly removed from a 1.5km stretch of beach as part of South Cape York Catchment group’s regular Walker Bay clean up and marine debris survey.

SCYC program manager Jessie Price-Decle said 17 people volunteered an afternoon to take part in the clean up efforts.

“South Cape York Catchments volunteers did a great job at Walker Bay, getting a clean-up done along with the regular marine debris survey,” she said.

“Two of our volunteers, Ben and Ori, put in a particularly valiant ef- fort carting a very heavy piece of concrete for about 50 metres up the beach after digging it out of the creek; the most common item found was thongs.”

Ms Price-Decle said the survey had been done by SCYC every three months for almost five years, and the information collected helped Tangaroa Blue tackle the marine debris problem at the source.

The clean up was a ReefClean event funded by the federal government’s Reef Trust and delivered by Tangaroa Blue in partnership with SCYC.

Partnership in the gardens

A COLLABORATIVE information sharing day between Balnggarrawarra Rangers, Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, South Cape York Catchments and Cook Shire Council has been held at the Cooktown Botanic Gardens.

Rangers and staff spent the afternoon identifying local plant species and sharing cultural knowledge and language names.

The group also focused on knowledge sharing about the endangered Coix gasteenii grass, which is grown both in the gardens and on Balngarrawarra country.

The group are planning a field trip to Ngaynggarr National Park in the dry season to map and record the rare grass in its natural habitat.

Impromptu art exhibition

THE calibre of entries for Cook Shire’s recent Reconciliation Action Plan youth art competition was so high that the council has organised an impromptu exhibition to share the paintings with the public.

The exhibition will be on display at Nature’s PowerHouse in the Botanic Gardens until April 17, with attendees encouraged to vote for the People’s Choice Award, with the winner to receive a prize.

The works reflect the theme of reconciliation, with the cover artwork to be announced next week when the council formally adopts the RAP.

Fill in the blank cells using numbers from 1 to 9. Each number can only appear once in each row, column and 3x3 block.

Daily Conventional Crossword 15 X 15 Grid Z

Quick Workout

Fit the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 into the hexagons so that where the hexagons touch, the numbers will be the same. No number is repeated in any hexagon.

Crossword

Note to Editor: Created in QUARK XPRESS. VER.4.03 Items not needed for publication can be erased as each is in a separate text box.

Spot the 5 Differences

Created: Ted Whillier Qxpress: 8485 Matt Trickey