Breathing New Life into Bushland

We first caught up with Colin Smith to see how he was using his dozer to help develop an airpark at his 70 acre property located on the western fringe of Melbourne.

Colin’s lifestyle property "Daisy Banks" has been his home for 20 years. "My wife and daughter have a few horses, my son has his stock car and I have enough room to play with my planes and farm equipment” Colin told us.

Colin also has a keen interest in nurturing the native flora and fauna in the area, particularly along the 2 kilometres of creek frontage which runs through the property.

"There is a section of the property adjoining the creek which has been overrun with box thorn," explained Colin. "I have been tackling it for a number of years with a brush cutter and digging out the roots by hand. It was back breaking work and I didn’t make much of a dent in it.

Once I got the dozer I really started to make an impact. I can push dozens of bushes in an hour. The great thing is they come out roots and all. So I just make a pile and burn them. This has made it possible to start some planting of indigenous species. In fact I was so keen to re-vegetate I applied for a grant to Melbourne Water under their stream frontage management program. I was provided with funding to put in 450 plants.

An advisor from Melbourne Water came out and inspected the area and recommended appropriate plants. So we have put in fragrant saltbush, clustered everlasting, common tussock grass, kangaroo grass, drooping she oak, river red gum, grey box, white wood and sweet bursaria.

We do see signs of a number of native animals including wedge tailed eagles, koalas, wallabies, echidnas and falcons. With the revegetation program creating a more suitable habitat I am confident these populations will increase.

The reality is I never would have been able to get this project off the ground without the dozer.

You can pick up one of these East Wind Dozers for around $30,000 brand new. It’s a great little machine that is easy to use and there really is nothing else like it for the price.

I have had it for 18 months now. I have done 178 hours, that’s not much for a contractor but it’s a fair bit for a bloke just mucking around on weekends. She’s still going strong and it’s great to have the convenience of being able to go out and get something done when I have a bit of spare time.

It is surprisingly economical to run as it is happy to chug along at low revs and it doesn’t need a lot of maintenance. Most of all, I just love the fact that I am putting the dozer to good use, recreating natural bushland."