The Pilliga / Leard Tag-along tour is a not for profit tour. It is an activist tour aiming to educate and highlight the dire impacts of coal seam gas and coal mining in our country. It is tour that contrasts the beauty of the Pilliga with the visable impacts of mining
Car sharing is encouraged, as fuel is the largest cost. Self catering is an option; costs are kept to a minimum.
We meet at the Pilliga Bore Baths on Friday, an amazing artesian hot pool on the edge of the Pilliga Forest. There is time to relax in the 37-degree artesian water. You can camp at the Bore Baths $5, or take a room at the Pilliga Pub. Enjoy dinner at Pilliga Café.
Saturday we head for the Forest Discovery Centre, Barradine. Check out the excellent displays, learn the history of the region and about the Pilliga wildlife.
We visit Dandry Gorge; take a 3 km walk to see the beauty of this rugged country and the amazing sculptures; a 1.7km walk to view the beautiful colours and Aboriginal art in the Sandstone Caves.
Saturday night camp or share rooms or private accommodation at beautiful Pilliga Pottery, with dinner at Blue Wren café.
Sunday we tour the coal seam gas fields: visit ‘produced water’ spills; and see poorly rehabilitated areas on old exploration sites, gas pipelines, pilot production wells, and previously unlined produced water ponds. We’ll discuss people’s reactions and the risks to the Great Artesian Basin.
The Santos leasehold in the Gunnedah Basin includes 53 current wells in the Pilliga and 850 proposed wells in the Pilliga and adjoining farmlands.
Next we will drive to the Wando Farm to see views of the Maules Creek open cut coal mine in the Leard Forest. Tea is served and the tour ends.
The Leard Forest was the single largest remnant of native vegetation and biodiversity in the heavily-cleared Liverpool Plains. It had one of the largest and most intact stands of Box-Gum left in Australia, with over 100 nesting hollows per hectare recorded, hollows required by many Australian animals for nesting and roosting. The three mines in Leard Forest will cumulatively clear at least2/3 of forest.
By Pat Schultz, Sustainable Living Armidale
