Search continues for entangled whale off NSW coast
A search has resumed this morning for a "distressed" whale which is entangled in rope and trailing a buoy.
Rescue teams were unsuccessful in setting it free after it was sighted just south of Sydney Harbour yesterday.
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ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Three easy-to-grow, low-maintenance plants that look after themselves
At 96, Patricia Bate still enjoys the garden she grew with her late husband Noel, but at her age she needs plants that look after themselves. Her lush oasis at Ulladulla on the New South Wales south coast is the result of decades of labour. In 1991 the garden consisted of a grass patch but is now anything but bare. A Spanish moss, which has been growing for the past two decades, hangs gracefully in abundance, with soft, trailing stems. The blanket of Spanish moss, a plant native to South and Central America, grows on a trellis Noel planted for beans. "My granddaughter Nicole noticed the birds were moving it, and they made a nest in the camellia," Patricia said. "Then some appeared on the elk horn, and the tree fern, and she just watched, and gradually she worked out she would use Noel's trellis, the back of it, thread it through, which she has done. "And we now call it Nicole's wall." For 30 years horticulturist John Gabriele has been advising listeners on local radio program the Compost Heap. He often makes recommendations for people who enjoy gardening but are aging, short on time or lack space. "I had the pleasure of meeting Patricia a few years back at an event for Garden Clubs Australia, she's in her 90s and an inspiration to us all," John said. Over the years Patricia has sought advice about her garden features, including a ponytail palm, strelitzias and the Spanish moss, which grows with vigour, draped and dappled among the tree ferns. Spanish moss, a bromeliad in the Tillandsia genus, is an epiphyte, a plant that grows on other plants. From subtropical regions, the plant grows well in the Illawarra climate. "Some people refer to it as old man's beard, which has got this beautiful glaucous or grey-blue colour to the stems or the foliage, which are the stems," John said. Hanging from boughs and branches it propagates easily and doesn't damage the plant it's growing on. "Spanish moss draws nutrients from the atmosphere, so you'll get nitrogen fixation with thunderstorms and when it rains, it draws nitrogen from the moisture in the air," John said. "If you've got one growing in a dry environment, sprinkle it with water every two weeks in summer, maybe a little bit more if it's dry and in winter you'd water it once a month. Like most grey leaved plants, Spanish moss tolerates salty conditions growing in areas with salt-laden winds. But like many introduced species, under the right conditions it can become an environmental weed, although John said it was not something that had been declared. John said for older gardeners, softwood perennials provided colour and ease of maintenance as well as being drought-tolerant. "Most softwood perennials don't require a great deal of maintenance, and you can get the cut-and-come-again types, which are relatively easy to grow." Strelitzia is a plant native to South Africa that is very hardy and drought-tolerant, with an excellent picked flower. "Strelitzia can get up to 10 metres tall, but the one that most people know of, the bird of paradise, is a fantastic plant to have in a garden," John said. "It produces beautiful flowers that can be cut and brought indoors for arrangements or just left in the garden to enjoy. "As the name implies, they don't produce woody tissues so pruning or cutting flowers from strelitzia, for example, is relatively easy on the wrist opposed to a woody tree or a shrub." John said using softwood perennials and annual plants would provide colour and ease of maintenance. Another feature of Patricia's garden is a slow-growing architectural plant known as a ponytail palm, a worldwide ornamental plant originating from Mexico. "It was in a tiny pot, then went to a larger pot and that pot cracked, so it was put in the garden and hasn't stopped growing," she said. John said it was a lovely, low-maintenance plant to have in any garden. "It's basically a succulent for want of a better description," he said. "Those types of plants, succulents and cacti, you'll find that older people tend to use a lot of them because of the low-maintenance requirements."
News.com.au
2 hours ago
- News.com.au
500-tonne gross find in Aussie sewerage
A simple household act many Aussies consider totally fine is costing them and their state thousands of dollars and hours every year to repair. Flushing wet wipes down the toilet continues to plague state water departments, with hundreds of tonnes of the product being removed from systems every year. Flushed wipes can easily block household drainage systems and cost Aussie homeowners more than $1000 in plumbing bills. But it's the wipes that make it off the property and into the state systems that cause even bigger problems. Known as 'fatbergs', huge clumps of wipes that have melded together are extracted from state systems every year. The biggest cluster of wet wipes removed from a system was recorded in 2024 when a 42-tonne 'fatberg' was discovered in Victoria. It weighed two tonnes more than the average petrol tanker and took workers nine hours to dislodge and remove from the sewer. Another, discovered in 2016 in NSW's Hunter Region, involved a one-tonne ball of wipes was removed from local sewer pipes. Almost 75 per cent of the one-tonne cluster was removed with specialised equipment from a station at Eleebana while the remaining 25 per cent was removed by hand using buckets. MORE: Worst hoarder homes in Australia exposed 'Wet wipes are responsible for around 80 per cent of all sewer blockages in Hunter Water's system,' Hunter Water Corporation spokesman Nick Kaiser said at the time. 'These can cost thousands of dollars to repair and if they occur in people's private plumbing that cost is worn by the customer.' Following the Eleebana incident the Water Services Association of Australia estimated flushed wipes were costing water departments nationwide $25 million per year. Sydney Water claims it removes more than 500 tonnes of wet wipes from its 24,000km of pipes, 680 pumping stations and 29 wastewater treatment and recycling plants every year. At the heart of the issue is false advertising where wipe manufacturers claim the synthetic wipes are flushable. This leads Aussie to think it's fine to flush them down the toilet without realising they actually don't dissolve like toilet paper and can take many years to break down. Once in the sewerage systems, wipes combine with fats and other substances to form the massive 'fatberg' clumps decimating systems. In Victoria, Yarra Valley Water said it spends nearly $1 million each year to clear about 1200 blockages caused by wipes. Yarra Valley Water said it retrieves almost 14 tonnes of wet wipes and rags from sewer system in any given week. Meanwhile, South Australia marked 2024 as its worst year on record for wet wipe issues – more than 1600 blockages were recorded in Adelaide in a single year. In Queensland, Urban Utilities remove about 120 tonnes of wet wipes each year, costing the state about $1 million.
ABC News
4 hours ago
- ABC News
Heroic surfing priest rescues father and son from rip at Cable Beach
A Catholic priest has rescued a father and son who were struggling to swim at a tourist hotspot in Western Australia's far north. Last weekend, Father Ryan was out in the water at Cable Beach when he spotted two people struggling to stay afloat. "I saw a couple of fellows who looked like they were getting pretty close to where a little flash rip was," he said. Father Ryan paddled over when he yelled out and heard no response. He said within seconds, one of the "young fellas clambered onto his board" relieved at the sight of help. "Being in a tourist town, we do get a few people who are not familiar with being around open water," he said. "[It] can look really calm, but if there's a big tide … one minute you're in the flags, next minute you're on your own." While Father Liam Ryan spends much of his time at the Broome Catholic Church, he is equally known in the community for surfing and swimming in the open waters. The rescue was not his first foray into saving desperate swimmers. He received an Australian Bravery Award in 2022 for saving someone who was bitten by a great white shark in Bunker Bay in the state's south-west two years prior. Father Ryan described the situation as similar to his Cable Beach rescue but "a little bit scarier". "We ended up getting a little bit of a pat on the back. We got the gong from the [government]," he said. Ultimately, Father Ryan said there was "something deep within you" that wanted to help others in need, and he credited years of swimming, which gave him the ability to assist in water emergencies. Last weekend's rescue at Cable Beach was not an isolated incident. There has been a spike in swimmers being caught in rips and getting into trouble outside the designated flagged area since the start of the tourist season. There were four rescues in five days at Cable Beach, according to West Coast Water Rescue, contracted to patrol the tourist destination by the local council. Fatal drowning incidents at Cable Beach in Broome are rare, with a notable case occurring in 2020. More broadly, the Kimberley region recorded the third-highest regional drowning rate in Australia, at 4.55 per 100,000 residents, according to the latest data from the Royal Life Saving Society. Broome Surf Life Saving Club director Fabio Armanni said it was important people paid attention to the conditions. The Broome Surf Life Saving Club volunteers patrol the beach on Sunday, while West Coast Water Rescue patrols throughout the rest of the week. Mr Armanni said "preventative actions" were far more common than rescues, typically involving alerts when watercraft came too close to the flags or when someone was caught in a rip. Swimmers are advised to swim between the flags, check the conditions, swim with a buddy, avoid alcohol and drugs and be wary of rips. As Father Ryan puts it, "respect the ocean" and "don't be a dag, swim between the flags".
