The Norm Byrnes Arboretum
Norm Byrnes Arboretum
Ross Overton Park (next to C4)
Mission Beach QLD 4852
Open every day
9am – 5pm
The Norm Byrnes Arboretum was established to honour Norm Byrnes, a founding member of C4 and a passionate advocate for native plant conservation. This living collection of trees, featuring species that are vital to the cassowary and the Wet Tropics ecosystem, serves as a lasting tribute to Norm’s dedication to preserving our natural environment. Visitors are welcome to explore the arboretum and discover the rich biodiversity it protects.
A Walk In
the Park
—bob jones
Photo: Bob Jones in The Park.
The Norm Byrnes Arboretum in Ross Overton Park (“The Arboretum” or “The Park” for short) began as a playground near the Mission Beach School, which formerly sat on the hill across the road from it.
In fact, two cement cricket pitches are still in evidence at the north of the Arboretum.
My understanding of the pre-history of the Park is that locals put in money to outfit it as a general playing field; perhaps even as a future pool site, according to one story. I’m told the land was bulldozed and filled with dirt to make it level. I don’t know many more details but I do know that some of the old-timers are still angry about the oval being turned into a park for trees!
The mayor when Meryl and I arrived at the Beach (1993) was Ross Overton, brother of Lyn Overton, who was one of the chief originators of C4. My understanding is that Ross was instrumental in getting the land approved for use as a nature park under C4 management. Some people might have thought he was only pleasing his sister but Ross had a genuine commitment to conservation, as evidenced by the role he played in getting the bushland across from C4 made into a National Park. Obviously, both he and Lyn shared an interest in nature. In any case, I believe Marie Ritchie and others at C4 did make formal submissions prior to Council’s approval of the changeover.
Local rancour aside, in place of a playing field, a leafy Park now stands as the legacy of Ross and his Council. It has become a public landmark. Locals walk their dogs there. People have picnics, gather seeds, meditate and ride bikes there. Busloads of primary students arrive from schools throughout the Shire. University students come from Townsville and America to study the trees. Photographers set up tripods and complex cameras to take close-ups of the flowers and fruits. Many tourists use the Park as the starting-point for their beach-long hikes.
Anyway, following approval of the site, Norm Byrnes—a founding member of C4 and a former planner of the Darwin Botanical Garden—took charge of the Park and C4 volunteers began planting trees. Chris Manse, Norm and others laid underground pipes for taps and replaced the fence posts next to the road with a row of Alexander Palms, some of which are still there. The palms were expressly intended to keep vehicles out of the Arboretum. However, to this day, thoughtless campers somehow manage to situate their vans on the grounds. They probably think they’re lucky no one else spotted the site.
At quite an early stage, Eddie McEachan, manager of the Johnstone Shire Works Department, offered to make a greywater pond on the least fertile area in the middle of the site. The idea was to develop a small wetland for birds at the heart of the Arboretum. Purists on the C4 Management Committee prevailed and the proposal was dismissed. I believe that was a big mistake.
Shortly after Norm died in 1998 (his ashes are buried under the Leichhardt tree in front of the bench at the south of the Park), C4 Secretary Mary Ritchie asked me to take over from Norm as the Park Manager. I objected that I was a wordsmith and knew nothing about trees: they were lovely green things, and that was all. But Mary persuaded me to fill in as manager until someone more qualified took over.
Thirty years later, I’m still doing the job. I’ve learned a lot about planting and looking after trees but for the most part they remain green lovely things to me. Fortunately, I’ve had experts to help me out: Ranger Nigel Tucker initially, Peter Rowles today. I’ve always regarded myself as their offsider. I do what I’m told.
My first job was to create walking tracks. There were no formal tracks anywhere along the Beach at this time. At Mary’s request, I placed a series of witch’s hats in a figure-8 pattern around the Park. A bobcat driver shaved the grass off the marked route and delivered piles of crusher dust for me to rake out. Mary’s partner Michael Brunnack selflessly and courageously (I mean it!) drove the Shire roller round the paths, the smoke stack blowing black fumes in his face!
I’ll leave that worthy effort there and turn what eventually became of the paths. Almost from the start, I had the grandiose dream of extending the paths north and south, planting hundreds of trees and creating a gigantic botanical garden extending from Bingil Bay to South Mission. It would be signed with historical and botanical information and made into a central feature of Greater Mission Beach. Tourists could leave their cars behind and visit virtually every locale on foot or by bicycle. It would be an eco-tourist heaven!
Problem is: I didn’t have a clue about how to get funding and approval for extending the paths. But Penny Philips did. I’d never spoken to her about the possibility. She must have got the idea on her own. And she knew how to implement it.
The paths of the Arboretum became the starting points for the beach-long walkways there today. I’m not sure who else was part of the project, apart from a number of TO’s and David Divine. My wife Meryl informs me that many other people were involved in what became the “Ulysses Link” (i.e. the artistic part of the scheme); among them, Karen Schmitt, John Waldron, Robin Edwards and “Sam” (Sebastian?) DiMauro. Of course, that part of the circuit has become the Mission Beach market park.
At any rate, Penny deserves credit for her input. A prominent plaque or marker citing all of the contributors should be placed somewhere along the track.
To resume: as soon as trees were planted, I and other volunteers, most notably Bob Perry and Dot Beavis, had to keep them watered. This was a daily chore, aided only by a borrowed super-sized hose that was lugged around in a wheelbarrow, often by Dot!
Years passed in that fashion. At some point, the trees got big enough to be identified by numbers. Koppers logs were cut up and numbers painted on one face. The other ends were buried in the ground. Lists were then made of the numbered trees and offered to visitors of the Centre. They could walk around the Arboretum selecting plants they liked, then purchase seedlings for the same plants in the nursery, exactly as Norm planned.
Today most of those numbers have rotted away. Many of the trees that the numbers marked have vanished in Cyclone Larry in 2006 and Cyclone Yasi in 2011. Many tonnes of fallen trees were removed by the Council.
Anyway, new trees have been planted over the years. Prime examples of species are now identified by engraved badges, like those in the Cairns Botanical Garden. At some point, I’d like to see Council take up a suggestion of Tony O’Malley, i.e. that future badges should contain QR codes so that visitors could use their gizmos to download extensive information about each specimen.
As for the two big cyclones, just before Larry I‘d loosened the climbing vines that I’d been cutting back for years, waiting for the trees to grow big enough to support a canopy. I can only imagine what the Arboretum would have looked like if the storms hadn’t hit. Council workers, a friend of mine and I spent days cutting up branches and logs after Larry so they could be loaded onto trucks and taken away. It was a very sad time. Then the whole exercise had to be repeated in 2011, after Yasi. I’ll add that despite the destruction in 2006, enough foliage remained for Meryl and me to be married under the trees in July of that year!
Surprisingly, the Arboretum kept regenerating. It has never reached its pre-2006 level of all-round growth but many trees have gone on growing and are now big. I wish I’d been on hand directly after Yasi. (I was in Tassie.) I especially miss the large fig tree that got blown over near the road. It could have been tipped up and allowed to continue growing but the Council crew elected to remove it.
I had lots of time to reflect while cutting up fallen branches after Larry. I recalled a conversation I’d had with Norm. “What will happen if there’s ever a cyclone with a big tidal surge?” I asked.
Ahead of his time about global warming, Norm replied that he fully expected the entire beachfront to go permanently under water in the future. He laughed at the prospect, perhaps thinking that the event would put an end to development.
I believe he was right about the Park and beachfront going under the waves, probably before 2100. But like Norm I still think it serves an important function and is well worth the effort to keep it leafy and tranquil in the interim. It, together with the rainforest, might remind tourists what nature used to be like. It might inspire them to plant some trees back home!
Periodically, someone suggests turning the Arboretum into a site for the markets. I can well imagine the wheel ruts, trampled plants and general hubbub. It would be a disaster and a desecration of the memory of Ross and Norm, as well as a slap in the face to all the people who have worked so hard to make the Arboretum what it is.
Well, I keep getting side-tracked in this report. These days I put in one morning per week at the Arboretum: blowing the paths, planting seedlings, mulching, picking up branches and so on, together with Ian Shankly and Susan Pearson, who have done heaps to rake and tidy up the Park. Sometimes Community Service workers help out. Sometimes students from one of the colleges do a clean-up and plant-out. Even the US Navy helped restore the Park after Yasi. One project I’ve taken on board recently is eradicating all the Singapore Daisy along the littoral zone beside the Park. I hope strollers note that it’s the only portion of the Beach where the Daisy is absent. Part of my aim is to show Council it can be eradicated. I’ve noticed that, now that the zone has been stripped of weeds, kids have begun playing there and building forts.
The Daisy is a real pest. It’s a monoculture that destroys the aspect of the entire Beach, since it crowds out everything else and puts an enzyme in the soil that makes it hard for anything else to grow. Every part of the plant is a potential new plant. Cyclones shred it and sweep the bits inland, gradually taking over more and more of the bush.
Formerly, it didn’t grow in the National Parks, where there was too much shade. But I see that the plant adapted to shady areas over the years. That’s why it’s a genuine menace to a village that thrives on eco-tourism. Council needs to take this matter out of the too-hard basket and institute a full-on eradication programme.
As for the future, I still hope to get a canopy over the trees at some point and to bush up The Park enough to shut out the road and eliminate the need for mowing. My idea is to provide a safe, user-friendly experience of the rainforest, as far up and down the Beach as possible, in order to cut down on people trampling the main rainforest and disturbing the wildlife. And yes, I would still like to see a beach-long botanical garden
.
