NPWS Canyon Care Project | Macquarie Pass National Park

The Macquarie Rivulet needs your help! Located in Macquarie Pass National Park and home to the popular hiking destination Jump Rock, the Rivulet has seen a tremendous increase in visitors in recent years, due to the rise in popularity of scenic and formerly little-known spots such as Jump Rock on social media. This increased foot-traffic has led to a number of environmental issues arising or worsening, such as rubbish, graffiti, and weeds infestations.

Following on the success of the recent Canyon Care day we ran with NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service to address the rubbish and graffiti, we are now hoping to focus our efforts into ongoing weed control. Continuing our partnership with NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, we aim to reduce the current populations of blackberry, fireweed, Crofton weed, and several others, and disrupt their reproductive cycle to stop the spread of these invasive weeds. This will provide ecological benefits to the park and aesthetic benefits to its visitors. It’s custodianship like this we need more of, to protect the places we love.

We will hike our way up the creek to Jump Rock, hand-pulling weeds as we go and bagging up any seed material to remove from site. For those not familiar with the weeds we are targeting, we will be providing guidance on the day. Once we reach Jump Rock, we will finish up and have lunch then head back to the car park. The area offers swimming, canyon exploring, and hiking, but all additional activities will be at your own risk and are not part of the project.

What to bring & wear: Please bring along a pair of gardening gloves, hat, long sleeves and pants, sturdy closed shoes, water and lunch, and a big dose of enthusiasm!

Fitness: You will require some level of agility for this project, in some areas the track is steep and narrow, and there will be a degree of navigating through slippery boulders in the creek. We do not recommend this project if you have ankle or knee injuries.

Other info: This is a 16+ event, you will need to make your own way to the site, but we encourage you to car pool where possible; try a little shout out in the event discussion.