The ForRest Story 1978 to 2024

Piece of heaven

In the late 1970's we used to take a regular trip to visit friends at Port Macquarie North Shore. It was a 8 hour drive from Sydney and then a ferry across the river. They had a cottage on the river bank and the back yard ended at the rivers edge.

On one trip we drove along the beaches north (when you could still do that) and came out at Point Plomer. The road from Point Plomer to Crescent Head was rough and unsealed, the beaches were deserted and pristine. We stopped at Delicate Nobby about 12 kms from Crescent Head. Once there looking up at the sand hills from the beach we were told that there was a block of land for sale.

Rainforest and Paperbark

The land was owned by a local solicitor who needed to sell the property urgently. We walked the kilometer up a private road (now called Paperbark Lane) with Paperbark bushland along the flat southern side. The road began to climb with Paperbark replaced by rainforest. The top of the hill had some large trees that made a permanent canopy and it was dense with lantana and other weeds. From the top of the hill we went down into the rain forest with large buttress root gums and birds everywhere. It was just beautiful.

The land was in two parts. A small section on the beach side of the council road (Point Plomer Road) and the bulk of the property on the hill side of the road. The council road we would later learn was on our property and not on the allocated road easement. Recently the council sealed the road all the way to Big Hill and acquired the part of the property that was used by the road.

There were cattle throughout the melaleuca forest and peat areas. The cattle came in from a neighbouring properties and ran wild. There were no fences at all.

A 10 minute decision

10 minutes in and 1000 kilometers from care we made a decision to put an offer to buy the land to the owner. It took a little time but ultimately he agreed and the land (all 50 acres) was ours.

Family camping time

Our son was born in September 1981 and shortly after we took our first camping trip to the property. It was a long trip with a few stops with the baby. We setup camp in a clearing that was in the paperbark bushland off the road.

Water came from a pond that had been left over from Rutile mining.

We shared the camp with large monitor lizards the occasional red-bellied black snake, wallabies, kangaroos and lots of birds.

ForRest

At approximately 31°15’47 S and 152°57’31 E a small country house was built known as “For Rest”, just about 500 Km north of Sydney. The house sits at the top northwest corner of the property which comprises around 22 Ha of unique North Coast New South Wales environment. ForRest is made up of two separate pieces of land that are cut by the road that runs from Crescent Head, around 15 Kms North, along the coast. The property includes Littoral Rain Forest which forms on exposed headlands, Littoral Rainforests take the form of dense, species-poor and wind-sheared sometimes only a few metres tall. In ForRest the tree canopy is more diverse, sometimes includes palms, and may exceed 20 m in height dominated by Brush Box (Lophostemon confertus). There is also a large section of Coastal Wetlands that varies from open grass lands to think stands of broad-leaved paperbark (Melaleuca quinquenervia) and swamp oak (Casuarina glauca).

Impacts on the area

The traditional lands of the Muruwari and Gumbaingirr people are on the mid-North Coast of New South Wales. And we recognise them as the traditional owners of For Rest. The area would have been different when the traditional owners first passed through. Bev and John Debrincat acquired the property around 1980 which was then heavily weed infested mostly with Lantana and Bitu, a weed introduced from South Africa by rutile miners. The whole area was extensively logged from around the 1820’s and logging still continues today west of Kempsey. But as a result, not many large and old trees exist throughout the area. Later cattle were introduced and were allowed to graze all along the coastal area and had created significant damage when Bev and John first arrived. Then in the 1970’s the rutile miners came along and mined up and down the coast to provide rutile sand for the production of titanium dioxide. The miners created numerous ponds which can still be found there today but the greater damage was the introduction of the Bitu Bush (chrysanthemoides monilifera) for sand dune stabilisation this has now become a noxious weed infesting much of the sand dunes in the area.

Planning Policies Change

Over the last 40 years State Environmental Planning Policies have been applied to the areas covering For Rest. These include SEPP 26 protecting the Littoral Rain Forest and SEPP 14 protecting the Coastal Wetlands.

In 1992 the existing house was built on the property but not without some issues. The owners undertook a plan to remove weeds from the property and return it to as near to pristine as possible. The first and a major step was to fence the whole property to keep out the cattle that grazed freely but did a lot of damage leaving deep hoof prints is the delicate wetlands. The Littoral rain forest was also fenced so that access could be managed and controlled.

Environmental Impact Statement

A complete Environmental Impact Statement was developed and a plan to regenerate the Littoral Rain Forest and remove nocuous weeds from the entire property. "For Rest" is significant as a refuge for birds and animals with over 120 species of birds and animals having been recorded to date. This property will provide a local wild life refuge as the surrounding area is developed.

Regeneration

Dingo Creek Rainforest Nursery was contracted to carry out bush regeneration and collect seeds and grow plants for restoration.

There were many interested parties involved including Department of Environment and Conservation, Kempsey Shire Council, Dingo Creek Rainforest Nursery and Bev and John through the International Environmental Weed Foundation (IEWF.ORG). Peter Gollan of Dingo Creek Rainforest Nursery made all the daily decisions on the project.

Conservation Agreement

In 2005 voluntary Conservation Agreement has been signed with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, now the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust (BCT) - www.bct.nsw.gov.au. The aim is to maintain the vast majority (over 95%) of the property in its natural state and undeveloped.

Most of the core work of regeneration has been funded by the owners of the property over the last 16 years. With a budget being allocated annually to the work. More recently in 2006 the Conservation Partnership Unit of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service provided fund to assist in the fencing and restoration of the sand dunes. With the agreement of Kempsey Council an area exceeding that owned by ForRest was fenced.

EnviroFund Grant

In November 2006 IEWF received a grant from the Australian Government EnviroFund to extend the stabilisation and regeneration of the sand dune area (5 hectares) through to May 2008. The work undertaken with this funding allowed further strategic removal of bitou bush and planting to prevent wind corridors and erosion. All plantings were of plants grown from seed collected from the site and grown by Dingo Creek Rainforest Nursery.

Sulphate Soils

Most important is the discovery of acid sulphate soils. These soils include those that are producing acid (actual acid sulphate soils) and those that could become acid producing (potential acid sulphate soils). Potential acid sulphate soils are naturally occurring soils containing iron sulphides (pyrite). They become actual acid sulphate soils when they are dried, usually because of human activity, and the pyrite is exposed to air. In air, pyrite is oxidised, resulting in production of sulfuric acid. As a direct result of inappropriate drainage and excavation for urban development and agriculture along the coast of NSW, enough actual acid sulphate soil has been created to generate 50,000 tons of sulfuric acid every year. This causes tens of million dollars’ worth of damage to the state's fishing industry each year.

A Small Place in a Long History

There is a lot of history and effort that has gone into the restoration and protection of ForRest. If you just stand in the rainforest, or at night watch the Bent Winged Bats pass by, or are lucky to see the Regent Bower bird, then you know that it is all worth the time and effort.

The plan now is preservation for the next generations to be able to experience what the natural landscape is all about.

The story of ForRest will never really end.