Glenfern Valley Traditional Cache
This cache has been locked, but it is available for viewing.
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Difficulty:
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Size: 
(micro)
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Glenfern Valley Bushlands
This area comprises 40 hectares or 100 acres, 35 km east of Melbourne. It is bounded on the south by Glenfern Road, on the west by New Road, the north boundary is Ferny Creek and the eastern boundary is 'Depot Track'. The land has a Grassy Forest and Herb Rich Foothill Forest on high ground to Riparian Forest at the creek line. It is in the Southern Fall Bioregion, and contains a large area of remnant vegetation.
No tools required to get this cache. Please DO NOT disassemble anything at GZ
Glenfern Valley Bushlands is continually evolving in both nature and facilities. It has important conservation values and opportunities to provide for a range of recreation activities in pleasant natural settings.
In 1873 John Buckley was granted 73 acres of land, which is part of the current 'Glenfern Valley Bushlands'. It was owned briefly from 1898 to 1901 by William Ward whose property totalled 117 acres, encompassing the current Bushlands.
In 1901, 97 acres was sold to Alfred McFarlane who still owned this land in 1958. The land was cleared and used as a dairy farm. There was a farmhouse on the corner of New Road and Glenfern Road, the only remaining evidence of this are some fruit trees (Prunus spp), roses (Rosaceae) and Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), which are naturalised over the property.
Investigation is continuing to find out who owned the land after the McFarlane Family passed away. The only information available is that the last remaining family member left his money to the Angliss Hospital, but it is difficult to find out who became the owner of the land at that time.
From around 1977 to 1987, the land was owned by Albion (Boral) Quarries. Rock was quarried on site for only a short time due to complaints from neighboring properties, about noise and house damage from blasting. The land was then handed to the Victorian Government in a land swap, to eliminate quarrying from the Dandenongs. The result was to bring about a land swap with another site in Lysterfield (Wellington Road).
During the time that this land was untended, it was used by 4 wheel drives and trail bikes for recreation and consequently the area was badly eroded with deep culverts from these vehicles. Local people had also used the area as a convenient rubbish dump for several years, and many tons of rubbish and car bodies have been removed from the site over the past 5 years. The area was in extremely poor condition in 2000 when a group of interested people got together to have this land preserved and rehabilitated. Many hundreds of hours of both volunteer and council contractor time has gone into the works to date, which have seen spraying of Chrysanthemoides monolifera (Boneseed) and Rubus fruitcosus (Blackberry) that are prolific on the site.
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