Following 3 months of extreme frustration with failing irrigation and excessive heat, we have at last completed the replacement and upgrade of our spike and water pump. This work was undertaken earlier in the week by Gary Human of The Water Boys. Gary, operating from Sedgefield is one of three who learnt the “spike sinking’ skills from the Leisure Isle legend Basil Bridgman who passed away at Leisure Gardens nearly 10 years ago.
Steenbok Nature Reserve will now undertake with Gary and his team a survey of the complete irrigation infrastructure operating throughout the Reserve. The existing irrigation system, now ten years old, has wiring and piping spanning over long distances in the Reserve with many of the sprayers being unreliable. Following the survey we will be in a position to develop a plan to proceed with a complete and staged upgrade.
We look forward to a promising maintenance relationship with Gary and The Water Boys.
It was unfortunate that these failures occurred during the early summer heat wave when we sadly watched many of our indigenous plants dying and a variety of our grasses turning brown. However we are now greeted in the Reserve, virtually overnight with green, green “grasslands.”
