Another very full day of grass cutting, with pretty much everything that can be reached from the rail cut and a good amount of whipper snipping undertaken behind properties and around crossings. The contract slashers are hopeful of getting the rest done this weekend or next, so it should all come up looking very nice and just ahead of the fire season!

It was an awfully hot and humid day to be out in it, but it’s job done, for now at least!

Check back on Monday for details of Tuesday.

It’s always everyone’s favourite job! However we certainly knocked over an absolute mountain of grass today.

Muckleford was a big focus, particularly around the station, rolling stock and picnic areas, the contract slashers will be in over the weekend to do the usual tidy up from Maldon to Castlemaine, as required, which should leave this looking very snazzy.

We had a big focus on clearing back the foliage which had blocked the sighting lines at Walmer Road Crossing, as well as making a real effort to get all the Blackberries mulched up and sprayed prior to them setting fruit.

It’s all looking quite neat and tidy now, a big improvement.

The afternoon was spent heavily attacking the overgrowth at Castlemaine Station, which seemed to have gone from a few spindly weeds a few weeks ago to grass tall enough to cut hay from! A significant improvement.

After all that, we were all well and truly stuffed, but with lots to show for our efforts.

Thankfully the worst is now behind us, mainly digger and contract slasher work to go now, however there is a little bit to go around the crossings in Castlemaine tomorrow and a few further areas of Blackberries to spray.

Tomorrow we’ll be meeting at Castlemaine Depot at 8am, where we’ll head out to Rowe St Crossing around 8.30am, progressively heading towards Maldon.

We’ve had a good start to the week, with various jobs underway, lots of lineside mowing ahead of the fire restrictions coming in to force next week.

We’re well towards getting our digger issues fixed, with the big digger right to be back into mowing duties tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s task will focus on more mowing, we’ll hopefully get a good jump on things ahead of the restrictions, meeting at Maldon at 8am then at Muckleford from 8.30am.

We thankfully managed to get everything we completed yesterday jacked and squeezed up, before the digger broke down again, somewhat spectacularly.

One of the brand new hydraulic hoses replaced when the rotating head was off only a few months ago, let go, a hole developed without any good reason – not in a location of rubbing, no sharp edges, not too near a fitting, nothing. Very frustrating and although we can probably get the hose replaced at no cost, it now requires the head to be dropped off again to gain access, it also puts a fair shadow over the quality of the other hoses replaced at the same time. That’ll now take up most of late next week.

It wasn’t a wasted day, however it has probably brought to a head that this week was the last major resleepeeing for this year, doing this work in the warm weather is just asking for trouble, so it’ll likely be next year before we resume.

We still managed to get the last of the sleepers bundled and made an excellent start on tidying up the site.

The big digger came to the rescue again, with it now cured of it’s small fuel issue – which after much investigation ended up being a small piece of plastic wrapping inside the lift/priming pump! Which was quite the job to access, deep in the guts of the engine bay, however we can certainly say we’re now intimately acquainted with both of these machines!! The general maintenance is the easy stuff, it’s all this left field stuff that just seems to be taking so much time and effort lately.

We’ll still be working on Tuesday next week. Despite it being a public holiday in some places. The task will almost certainly be related to grass mowing, last of the pre-fireseason tidy up etc… meeting at Maldon at 8am.