Adelaide Hills Council, Bridgewater Friends of Cox Creek and Activating Bridgewater invite you to join us for a special day revegetating Cox Creek in Bridgewater Recreation Reserve.

This event offers the opportunity to plant native rushes and sedges along the watercourse to help restore valuable habitat for the local Rakali and other native wildlife, with nature play activities for the children, and special guest speakers.

Participants will also receive a free native plant purchased from Kersbrook Landcare Nursery to take home with them for their garden.

Date: Sunday, September 8, 2024

Time: 11 am to 2 pm

Registration: Is free, but essential, register here.

Revegetation site is along Cox Creek, adjacent Bridgewater Recreation Reserve Linear Trail between Bridgewater netball courts and Honeysuckle Lane. The location is best accessed via the track behind the Bridgewater Netball Courts or the track from Bridgewater Oval.

Both the courts and the oval have car parks, but do not recommend parking behind the courts if there is a netball match, it gets full. You can also enter the Reserve on foot from Honeysuckle Lane, but there is no room to park there.

Gloves, Tools and equipment for planting, watering cans and buckets

Please dress in comfortable clothes and enclosed shoes and boots are recommended, it is watercourse restoration, and you could get muddy! Bring your own food and drinks, plenty of room for picnic rugs on the reserve side of the track.

Cox Creek is a tributary to the Mt Bold Reservoir providing water to greater Adelaide.

Bridgewater Recreation Reserve contains a lot of good quality native vegetation and a number of threatened native plant species too, including the Spotted Sun-orchid, Ploughshare Wattle, Candlebark, Pink and Manna Gums, Mount Lofty Phebalium, Short-awn Wallaby-grass and Native Broom.

It also provides suitable habitat for many threatened species of native wildlife, such as the Shining Bronze-cuckoo, White-throated Treecreeper, Spotted Pardalote, Scarlet Robin, Brush Bronzewing, Common Brushtail Possum, Bassian Thrush and Yellow-footed Antechinus. A local population of Rakali, a protected species, also lives in Cox Creek.

Historically the Reserve has been maintained and improved over time through Adelaide Hills Council's annual works programs and Bush For Life volunteer activities. In 2021, Council launched the "Riparian Restoration of Cox Creek in Bridgewater Recreation Reserve" Project in partnership with the Bridgewater Friends of Cox Creek and Bush for Life, increasing efforts towards improving habitat and water quality of the watercourse, riparian zone and Blechnum bogs, through weed control and revegetation with local native plants.

Some willow removal was undertaken this year, supported by a Hills and Fleurieu Landscape Board’s Grassroots Grant, funded by the landscape levy and Adelaide Hills Council.