No beige hat ... by Nick Wade

This week we were given the opportunity of an interview with Park Ranger Steve Woodhall. Sorry to disappoint this blogs many avid readers but no Steve Woodhall didn’t have a beige broad brimmed hat, he didn’t have aviators, he didn’t have long socks and most shocking of all he didn’t have a gun. Steve Woodhall is quite frankly the last person you’d expect to be wearing the green jumper of a Park Ranger.
After our friendly little chat with Steve I found all my preconceptions of Park Rangers and their adventures utterly shattered leaving me broken and empty. As it turns out Park Rangers are pacifists who care about nature (who knew).

Though I disapprove of the lack of gun and aviators Steve answered all our interview questions patiently and in detail which makes me eternally grateful as now my job of blogging about the interview has been made much easier.

While some in the class asked Steve important questions about economy and tourism impacts on nature, being a male teenager my mind was set on one thing and one thing only…conflict. So it wasn’t surprising to know my questions centred around what kinds of problems and dangers a Park Ranger faces in his job on the frontier of nature. As it turns out the leading problem facing Park Rangers in our area is the spreading of weeds, which can consume thousands of dollars each year as the Park Rangers valiantly battle against the spread of the scourge.

You see once upon a time in the area surrounding Mount Canabolas the farmers enjoyed fertile soil where their crops grew and flourished in the volcanic soil. Life was good and everyone was happy, completely oblivious of the horrors that lay ahead. One fateful day a fire (some speculate it was from hell) ravaged the land destroying the farmer’s precious crops and leaving them broken and helpless. It didn’t take long for the homicidal weeds of the land to seize the opportunity and infect the now bare and empty soil, crushing any hope the farmers had of regrowing. Thus it is that to this day the noble Park Rangers fight for the farmers very lives…stock.

I learned today that you don’t need aviators to be a hero (shocking I know) and I now plan to hang a poster of Steve on my wall at home.

Photo of blackberry flower (a noxious weed) by Tony Wills and published here under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. Source:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blackberry_flower_01.jpg