Eprapah, the Charles S. Snow Scout Environment Training Centre, at Victoria Point, near Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, is a noted ecological area within Redland City. Owned and managed by the Scout Association of Australia, Queensland Branch, the 39 hectares (96 acres) is home to a variety of habitats along Eprapah Creek to its north.
Its value is recognised as a declared environmental reserve by the local city council, and designated as a Scout Centre of Excellence for Nature and Environment (SCENES) site. It is possibly the only Scout campsite in the world devoted principally to environmental education.
Located at the intersection of Colburn Avenue, and Cleveland-Redland Bay Road, Victoria Point, the property was named for the creek travelling through its bounds. The name Eprapah is believed to be a corrupted form of the Biblical word Ephratah or 'fruitful land'.
Environmental aspects
The area is one of several areas of preserving environmental importance in Redland City, including Venman Bushland National Park and the nearby Girl Guide-run Kindilan Outdoor Education and Conference Centre.
Additional to its Indigenous, European, and Scouting heritage, Eprapah is home to koalas, together with a variety of ecosystems (riparian, estuarine, rainforest). The site is bounded to the north by Eprapah Creek, and forms a wildlife corridor from Mount Cotton. It is estimated the area is frequented by 120 species of plants, 125 birds, 24 mammals, 50 fish and other aquatic animals, 21 reptiles, and at least 60 species of insects.
Eprapah and the creek have been subject to scientific research including hydrological surveys and koala tracking studies.
Catchment areas
With the increase in urban density from agriculture to residential areas, Eprapah supports and complements the creek and area's ecological importance. Coast-side of the property is the Victoria Point Environmental Precinct, going to the edge of the Moreton Bay Marine Park.
To the east is the egret colony wetlands. Bounded by houses, the paperbark tea-tree-fringed lowlands are the avian home to egrets, magpie geese, osprey, whistling kites, all varieties of ibis. It is also the roosting area for a bat colony. Accessed from along Egret Drive, via Point O'Halloran Road, there are no established tracks for visitors. Redland City Council is the custodian of this rare site, and it is maintained by the community bushcare volunteers.
To the north-east, the Point Halloran Conservation Area is accessed from Orana Street, via Point O'Halloran Road.The point and conservation area are Port Halloran, while the road is Point O'Halloran. The name Halloran was in use prior to the 1930s, but appears the name was interchangeable. Purchased in 1990, and opened in 1995, with a car park, and raised wet weather shelter, there are two walking circuits, and was billed as a 'koala ecotourism sanctuary'. A raised boardwalk takes visitors through freshwater reed vegetation, towards Aspect Drive (parts of the boardwalk are closed for repair by March 2015). The second walk of is signposted to explain the changing vegetations of swamp she-oak (Casuarina sp.) forest and mixed woodland, to the edge of mangrove tidal mudflats. The area is well populated with large arboreal termite mounds, reflecting the waterlogged soils.
A bushlands refuge also exists upstream of Eprapah, on a southern tributary of Eprapah Creek, on Elysian Street, Victoria Point. Further upstream is the Sandy Creek Conservation Area beside Double Jump Road, Mount Cotton.
Geography
Eprapah is predominantly flat as it tends to the coastal edge of a water course that commences in the nearby weathered granitic outcrop of the tall Mount Cotton. Soils are reflective of an area forming the creek entrance to a bay, including gleyed clays, alluvial deposits, and across the majority of the site, podsoiled loam.
Characterised by a short-lived freshwater flushing, and little or no dry season flow, the Eprapah Creek's estuarine zone to the north east is classified as wet and dry tropical/subtropical. A sewage treatment plant also discharges into the creek.
The development of the Victoria Point Shopping Centre area in the vicinity has greatly increased water run-off through the site. With roofs and bitumen-covered car parks, the non-porous surfaces has seen periods of rainfall turn the sedate riverlet to Eprapah Creek turn into a torrent, with an associated increase in jetsam.
Given the various ecosystems existing in a small area, surrounded by increasing pressures of urbanisation, results in Eprapah having great environmental interest and local value.
Vegetation
With sandy ridges of low sclerophyll forest, there are also other vegetation types present of rainforest remnants, sheoak or Casuarina sp. forest stands, Melaleuca swamps, salt meadows, and mangrove stands. The site hosts one of the important food trees of the koala, Queensland's faunal emblem, is the blue gum (Eucalyptus tereticornis). Other species around include the scribbly gum (Eucalyptus signata).
The beautiful golden-flowering Eprapah wattle (Acacia fimbriata var perangusta) was previously considered to be a species in its own right, but is now considered to be an extreme form of another species, the Brisbane golden wattle or fringed wattle. It can be distinguished by the dimensions of the phyllodes, gland position, and the flower colour.
Certain patches of the site have had specific plantings where weeds have been removed. Representative of the local area, the site has battled overgrowths of non-native plant pests such as Lantana camara and groundsel (Baccharis halimifolia), as well as mosquitoes and ticks. The site committee has an eradication plan removing from site invaders such as Camphor laurel trees, Asparagus fern, and plants not native to the area. Much propagation of ornamental plant species is occurring through the birds having eaten the fruits from surrounding areas. There are some issues caused by illegal dumping on the property's peripheral.
Fauna
The Eprapah link wildlife corridor from Mount Cotton along Eprapah Creek allows the relative unencumbered movement of fauna, and encouraging biodiversity within the Redlands. Established in 1990 in a joint venture between Scouts and the shire council, it also includes another Scout property, Karingal. Eprapah itself is home to koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus), bandicoots (Isodon macrourus), black-tailed swamp wallabies (Wallabia bicolor), grey kangaroos (Macropus giganteus), kookaburras, large arboreal termite mounds, and a sea eagle.
Koalas in eastern Australia are being classified as vulnerable and added to the threatened species list. Numbers have dropped by forty percent in Queensland and by a third in New South Wales over the past twenty years. Subject to increasing pressures brought about by urbanisation (such as roads, dogs) causing habitat fragmentation, overcrowding at Eprapah has seen a drop in the population due to loss of or over-eating of available food trees. They have also become susceptible to various diseases including chlamydia.
Habitat research has also occurred on the site over the years. For example, koalas have been captured, their health checked, and radio collars fitted.
The freshwater area is also home to the near-threatened tusked frog (Adelotus brevis). The only Australian frog where the male is larger than the female of the species, they have a distinctive 'tok-tok' clucking sound. Habitat encroachment, introduced fish, and a fatal skin disease fungus have contributed to their vulnerability.
The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) once resided in the creek pond near Cleveland-Redland Bay Road, but increased turbidity and lessening water quality has meant the animal has not been sighted for some years.
For migratory birds, the property is also within the East Asian–Australasian Flyway, and the Moreton Bay Ramsar wetlands. Within east of Eprapah is an egret colony wetlands at Victoria Point.
The standing pond, supplied and flushed with rains, contains a variety of aquatic life include Gambusia fish and other species, whirligig beetles, backswimmers, dragonfly nymphs, and mayfly nymphs. The tidal part of Eprapah Creek of course is home to fish, molluscs, and crabs.
Indigenous heritage
The home of the Quandamooka, Noonoccal, Koobenpul tribe and part of the Jagera/Yagera/Yugembeh language group people, Eprapah was part of their range from Redland Bay (Talwarrapin, or cotton wood tree that was endemic to the area) to the Brisbane River (Mairwar).
Victoria Point's Aboriginal name of Warra Warra possibly means mussels, while Coochiemudlo refers to the red rock that forms the small island.
A midden was discovered on-site but its location has since been lost.
Many plants at Eprapah were used by the Aboriginal people, including the red ash or soap tree (Alphitonia excelsa) as a poison, the edible and crunchy small fruit of the lillypilly (Syzygium smithii), black bean or Moreton Bay chestnut (Castanospermum australe) as a food source (after long treatment), and the paper bark (Melaleuca sp.) for carrying containers amongst other uses. A native food garden has been established at the south-west corner of the property, near the Mungara visitor centre.
European presence
The area including Eprapah, prior to Queensland becoming its own colony in 1859, was used for stocking cattle. Victoria Point was named in the 1840s, surveyed in 1859, with 'Eprapah Creek' becoming a post office at Holzapfel's store in 1890. The Colburn family,Daniel William Colburn has also been reported with a surname of Colbourn. giving their name to the road now acting as the southern border of the property, settled in the 1860s.
Mostly farmers, other activities in the area included timber-getting. Nearby Link Road served as the log rafting area, to be floated to the mills at Cleveland and Wellington Point. Sugar plantations, custard apples, grapes, passion fruit, pawpaws, pineapple, tomatoes, cabbages, cucumbers constituted some of the farming activities. The market gardens supplied the Sydney and Melbourne with fresh seasonal pineapples.
As the divide between the Tingalpa and Cleveland local government divisions, financial debates commenced in 1898 about the construction of a road bridge over Eprapah Creek. The bridge was later improved in 1924.
Eprapah continued to be used as a district name until about 1915. The 1930s continued to see Victoria Point as a popular holiday destination, with trips to Coochiemudlo Island. Farming and tourism continued as the main post-World War II activities, when in the 1970s, crop farming progressed to flower growing. Throughout this period, Eprapah remained intact as a bushland property.
Scouting heritage
In April 1928, the property of Eprapah was purchased with money from the Bob Monteith Memorial Fund trust. Robert Henry Monteith (born 1892) was killed in action at the Battle of Mont Saint-Quentin, France, on 2 September 1918.Born in Brisbane in 1891, Bob Monteith was the only son of Henry Monteith (1862–1930) and Katie Rose Waldie (1867–1954). After studying at the Brisbane Grammar School in 1906, he became a stockbroker, residing at his father's Ironside Estate, Toowong, before enlisting on 31 May 1915, aged 23. Serving with the army service corps at Gallipoli, he then went with the 26th Battalion to France, and was mentioned in dispatches for his leadership. He is buried in Peronne, Somme, France. Henry Monteith in June 1924, as chairman of the directors of the Brisbane Newspapers and involved in Scouting administration, gave £5000 to the Boy Scouts' Association, as a memorial to their son. His father was involved in the Scouting movement and the parents created the deed in trust remembering their son.