Stanthorpe June 2024
Back in October 2023 bush fires raged along the boarder between Qld and NSW. Early in 2024 BlazeAid setup a camp at the showgrounds at Stanthorpe. That camp still continues but is now located at the Fred Rogers council facilities at Storm King Dam about 10km out of town.
Work continues on farms in the area as well as some farms an hours drive away. The camp has a majority of backpacker working for meals, accommodation and to qualify for a holiday visa extension to extend their stay, in Australia. People come and go but generally there are about 40~50 in camp at any one time, maybe 75% backpackers.
I've been working on a farm south of Tenterfield where the they lost 95% of the fences but the fire fighters saved the 2 sheds and the house. The farmer got up and running again by quickly erecting temporary fences on the property. We have removed the temporary fencing and put in place a permanent electric fencing system where one energizer, centrally located, is serving all the fences on the property. After 5 weeks we have used over 5km of new wire, hundreds of pickets, fitted insulators, and trenched many gate openings as well as the normal fencing stuff like mounting gates and building end assemblies.
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| BPs trenching the electric cable under a gate opening |
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| After improving the creek crossing with bricks a great place for smoko. |
