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Eden Forest Camp

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Mostly SEFA (ChipStop site) and TWS crew held a forest camp outside the Eden chipmill in southern NSW. We camped by the main road and watched the log trucks go past for a week, counting and recording contents. A fun time was had by all.

Our goals were to raise more awareness, and get an idea of traffic flows to the mill. We seem to have done both, with good media coverage as well as some new people turning up.

Shortly after arrival at the turnoff to the Eden chipmill. We got there just after 6am and the trucks were already running. Welcome to Wonboyn... setting up camp. Scoring starts. Peter Cochran from Timber Communities Australia" turned up at about 9am and set up over the road from us. He was a bit grumpy, and was there to present the facts to people. Note our banner in the background - we put it up before he arrived, and it mysteriously disappeared on Tuesday night. The EcoWarriors marquee went up to give us a bit of presence on the side of the road. Between that and the banners we were hard to miss. Looking north. The fire, with the big banner in the background. We spent a lot of time just sitting round the fire. Helen being domestic - making a dish drying rack. Tony and I both had hammocks. Scotty had one two, but didn't actually sleep in it. The wind... ah, the wind just kept getting stronger, until eventually it downed the marquee. I eventually took my fly down and just hoped the rain would stay away, because I couldn't work out how to pitch it so that it was secure enough to stay in place and not get destroyed, and still keep the hammock dry. From looking at other designs, it seems that no-one else has a good way either. And the trucks just kept going past. About 130 a day into the chip mill, and one or two kept heading north to the sawmill. Hmm. "waste wood" they say. Nice exhaust plume! The chipmill... or as close as I got this time. That security gate keeps us from getting to the dirty great electrified barrier over that rise. Still, every time we drove down they rushed around and called more security people up. Which we enjoyed. The ship being loaded. By sheer coincidence we camped the week after the leader of the state opposition visited, and as a ship was being loaded. Earlier in the year protestors locked onto a ship and held it up for a day. So people got very excited when we arrived at the same time as a ship... A new wharf being built as part of a munitions facility of some sort. This could complicate future protests. A shower of rain overnight got us all excited, we trenched around the tent and prepared for actual rain. Which never arrived, but at least we would have been ok if it had. We got a few loads of sawmill waste as well - they chip it onsite and truck it to the chipmill. The lesser spotted treehugger is only seen at dusk, and is only visible to the careful observer. This rare shot was the result of hours of preparation and careful stalking. Here we see three huggers in their natural habitat. Night around the fire. The butts sign is an attempt to keep the fire clean after a wee ceremonial blessing earlier in the day. Another 30 tons down t'mill... Jenny. Porrige. Well, porrige with fruit and stuff in it. Good in the morning though. Most of the trucks had some sort of self-folding rig on them, and it was vaguely entertaining seeing the different sorts. All in the name of reducing wear and tear, and fuel consumption. Visitors (you can tell, because they're clean and neat... after a few days camping it's hard to get that look). Lee Rhiannon (greens MLC) paid a visit to hear the latest on the campaign. And gave us a bit more media. We all love that banner ;-) Group photo on the Wednesday. Old mate over the road claimed Lee didn't actually visit on the Wednesday, but unfortunately my camera puts time and date on the photos... I've got photos from both days. Poor man, he didn't do very well that week. Hippy slop! Forest. Well, regrowing bits that have been logged repeatedly. Lee back again. This reporter dropped by on another job and put the story in in Canberra. Potentially very useful for us. Pile of uni types from Newcastle turned up on Friday. A heap more were going to, but never made it. Still, the extra numbers on Friday were great. The ancient art of toothbrush-fu, as practiced by Jenny. The amazing stick-fetching dog. And his obedient stick-throwing human. Actually, the dog was seriously persistent about the stick. The final group photo. An interesting banner we saw on our way home. At night, so it's barely visible 20m up a couple of trees. It says "State Forests NSW corrupt pedlars of extinction". And since we've stopped for a break, a photo of the cars going past. Amazingly, I managed to get the Police car in the flash at the end of a 15s exposure. The local paper gave us front page coverage. And Gerhard made it to page 3. Sydney water plod came down for the week too. Last time we blocked a ship...
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