COOLEMAN PLAINS – 15 March 2024
I’d been “out of action” for over a week after cataract surgery, so I was keen to get out and do some exercise. I was down in the Kosciusko National Park at Yarrangobilly, waiting for the rest of the group to arrive and John B was going out to the Cooleman Plains to check on some limestone a-tents, so I decided to join him. I’d be able to check out the brumby situation, and also get some exercise – win-win.
Whilst the weather wasn’t the best (overcast with a chance of rain) it was fortuitous to be able to go to Cooleman Plains as the access roads would be closed on April 4, for six months to allow aerial culling to reduce the number of feral animals in the park.
In 2023, it was estimated that over 16,000 feral horses were across the park causing much environmental destruction. After many years of lobbying by interested parties, the NSW government is now required, by law, to reduce the number of feral horses in Kosciuszko to 3,000 by June 2027, in a bid to better protect the fragile alpine ecosystem. This is an extremely contentious issue, the “horse lobby” are dead against the culling, but there are many who are happy that the problem is finally going to be addressed.
A trial was conducted a few months ago (not sure when, nor am I sure how the culling was undertaken) and when John and I were driving in, I still expected to see a lot of horses, as I did back in 2018, but we didn’t see any. We thought that either they have been encouraged to move to a less touristy area by arial mustering (so as to be culled in April), or their trial was extremely successful.
Having crossed the plains, we arrived at our jumping off point. I’d be following John into the unknown to check out a-tents.
John and I set off at around 9.30pm following an old track. This land had been heavily grazed before it became a National Park, and there are quite a few of these tracks throughout the park that serviced huts, most of which are no longer standing (usually destroyed during bush fires).
After about 7k of walking we were in the area where the a-tents are found, a surprisingly small area of the NP. Back in 2018 when we first visited the a-tents, it was determined that they were being trampled by the feral horses, so National Parks agreed to protect some of them with mesh covers. This would ensure that how the a-tents formed and how they broke down over time could be recorded.
Initially, they did a “test run” using galvanized metal mesh, and it was found that over time the lichen on the rocks was killed by the galvanized metal run off, here you can see where a mesh cover had been installed and the white parts of the rock show where the lichen had died off. In the photo above you can see John pointing to where a galvanised screws had initially been used and that had also killed off the lichen (screws were then replaced with stainless steel screws).
An “unprotected” a-tent, this is where over time a layer of rock breaks away from the rock below it, and a cavity is formed, and usually the rock breaks down the middle.
Another example of a protected a-tent.
This is an example of a bubble that had formed, and is now breaking up but is being protected so that the rate of decomposition can be assessed.
New a-tent found.
John has collated measurements for most of the a-tents found across this limestone block. All a-tents are photographed and from time to time re-measured.
Recording one that was found but no gps location or measurements were recorded at the time.
New discovery.
On the walk out we came across this interesting limestone formation, it’s where limestone was previously underground, and over the years the topsoil has washed away and left these interesting formations.
We retraced our steps (I only saw one snake – probably a tiger snake), and were back at John’s car by 4pm. After so many weeks not doing any outdoor activities, this was just what I needed, a good long walk with nothing challenging. Thanks John for taking me on the walk!