Bushwalker rescued from mine at Sailors Fall

A bushwalker in his 30s was rescued after falling down a mineshaft near Sailors Falls on Sunday morning, April 2.

Leonards Hill Fire Brigade captain Marc Dankers, who was the incident controller, said he received a call at 11.41am about the incident off Telegraph Road.

"It was a confined space rescue, a mineshaft, so that activated a specialist mining unit which was the CFA's Oscar 1 unit, located in Bendigo and Castlemaine.

"We also had Fire Rescue Victoria's Hazmat 68 from Lucas in Ballarat, and a FRV pumper from Ballarat City because of the possibility of toxic gases."

Support also came from Daylesford CFA, FRV's District Operations, Ballan Group FCV, Birch Group FCV, Ambulance Victoria and Victoria Police.

Captain Dankers said the man and a woman, in their 30s, had been bushwalking in the area with their dogs when the man "misstepped" and fell into the mineshaft.

The woman called triple zero.

"The mineshaft turned out to be reasonably small, with a narrow shaft and only about two metres deep. So that was very lucky," Captain Dankers said.

"The man just misstepped - there are heaps of mineshafts around that area - and despite a dislocated shoulder, was eventually able to climb out with assistance using a ladder. Everyone worked really well as a team to get that good result.

"It's the first mineshaft rescue I have been involved in but you hear about them from other areas, they do happen, but often people can get themselves out of trouble."

Captain Dankers said the rescue took a couple of hours and as they were debriefing, a call came from Ambulance Victoria that a man had fallen off his horse in Blampied. He had broken his femur, the thigh bone, and was in a lot of pain.

"He needed assistance so it turned out to be quite the afternoon - and I want to thank everyone involved."

Captain Dankers said being a CFA volunteer meant you could be called to any kind of incident "from car accidents and traffic incidents to fires and bush rescues". "It really is very diverse but that makes it interesting as well."

Words: Donna Kelly | Image: Contributed

Get to know your garden's friends

From the time Peta and I took over the drought-ridden property that became our home, we were determined to “practise what I preached” in all my writings and broadcasts - throw away those chemicals and let nature take its course.

The resultant health issues through growing up and working amid a chemical saturated, family nursery taught me that simple message.

Rachel Carson’s terrifying treatise on the destruction of wildlife through the use of pesticides, Silent Spring, was the final decider.

In the 15 years since we moved in, we’ve been delighted with the steadily increasing number and varieties of the avian and predator insect life. Thankfully it has also coincided with a dramatic decline in sap suckers and leaf chewers.

The bug hotels and other residential attractions and spider-web tolerance are beginning to pay dividends, it’s now our second year of aphid-free roses and our birdbaths are in constant demand.

The parrot nesting box has, for the third year, become a weekend retreat for a ringtail possum, and our slug and snail population is taken care of by Lennie the neighbourhood shingleback lizard.

So let’s all learn to identify, protect and encourage our resident predator insects to administer their own form of biological pest control. In some countries people have to buy them commercially to help keep their gardens and crops pest-free.

Believe it or not, one of the most effective of all predacious insects is that dainty, little, red-spotted ladybird beetle with a main diet of soft-bodied insects like aphis, mealybugs, scale and spider mites. Best of all, they begin their feasting while in the larvae stage and, if times are tough and food supplies are scarce, they’ll turn their attention onto the larvae of many beetles and weevils.

Next on the list is the praying mantis - that ferocious-looking grasshopper-like fellow with enormous eyes and two arm-like forelegs which are always ready to grab anything moving. It is an insectivore and won’t harm any vegetation. But is always ready to grab anything that flies or moves close by.

They don’t stray very far and stay localised in the same area so if you can gather a few they will serve you faithfully for a long time. They lay frothy egg cases with 50 or more eggs in each, several times a year, so can build up numbers quite quickly.

Lacewings, those fragile greenish, large mosquito-like creatures, just love aphis and similar soft-bodied insects. Their larvae, which some call ant lions, live in the sand in funnel-like holes and eat any unsuspecting ant or bug that might stumble in.

The hoverfly, pictured, is so named because of their striped abdomen and formation hovering habits and are quite harmless, mainly thriving on nectar. Their larvae feed on various larvae.

I am also compelled to mention spiders, because they play a major role as pest destroyers in the garden. I say 'compelled' because I confess to being a practising arachnophobe due to a somewhat embarrassing and terribly painful encounter (you guessed it) in my early teens. God bless modern internal plumbing.

I am more than comfortable in having our garden draped with spider webs as long as they continue to help keep the garden pest-free. I’m also quite comfortable with Peta naming the occasional huntsman that takes up residence in the house, as long as they stay away from our bedroom - and the toilet.

Huntsman spiders belong to the international tarantula tribe and are, on the whole, quite harmless as long they are left alone including, the golden huntsman, pictured, which prefers the outdoors, finding their food among the bark of large trees.