The Elandsberg one-hectare Hakea Challenge
The Elandsberg one-hectare Hakea Challenge
Where: Assemble and start at the Oom Stan se Liggie car park.
When: Saturday 09 Nov 2019. 06h00: signing of indemnity forms & briefing. 06h30: starting time.
Cost: free
R.s.v.p. by 1 November: Donovan Kotze (kotzed@ukzn.ac.za or 0823022228)
What is required? long-sleeved shirt and long pants to protect against prickly hakea, gloves, hiking shoes, sunhat and at least 2.5 litres of water and a hand saw. Pruning saws work well, and if you do not have a saw then Klein Karoo Agri supply an excellent Agricut pull saw for about R200. The benefits for participants:
• An excellent team building exercise for the individual teams
• Build individual fitness and health
• Contribute positively to the environment and to Ladismith’s water supply – hakeas increase water use and therefore are reducing water supplied to Ladismith and surrounding farms
How the event will be run: The teams of three will walk at their own pace the approximately 4 km up the mountain on the Oom Stan se Liggie path, but with the last 400 m being off the path on fairly rough terrain but not very steep. The overall infested area would already have been divided up into several designated areas, with each being estimated to take a team of 3 people 2 hours to clear. As the teams arrive at the overall site, they would select which designated area they wished to clear, with the first team arriving obviously having the greatest choice. The first team to complete the clearing of their area would be the winners. But the designated areas would be inspected and the team would be penalized 3 minutes for every tree found which had been cut with leafy branches remaining (which would likely re-sprout in the future) or any tree which had been missed. We anticipate that the first 1 or 2 teams will complete cutting down all the trees in their selected area by 10h30 and they could then assist the slowest team/s finishing off their selected area, so that the overall area would be completed by about 11h30. We would all then walk down to be back in Ladismith by lunch time.
The concept! teams of 3 people walk for four kilometres up a hiking trail on the beautiful Elandsberg mountain to an area which is fairly densely infested with invasive alien hakea trees and the teams collectively clear at least 1 hectare of hakea. Those teams wishing to be competitive can aim to walk and clear their selected area as quickly as possible without missing any trees or branches which could re-sprout. However, if some teams chose to clear their selected area at a slow pace then that would be absolutely fine.
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