Richard Kemp

Give them a spray

25/2/2025

Treating wombats for mange is difficult and expensive. Richard Kemp
wonders if there’s a better way.

By Richard Kemp

This story starts with Laribee, a wombat who lived on my friend Liz’s place in The Gurdies. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen an animal covered with mange? This poor animal was covered in this horrible infestation of the sarcoptic mange mite. You know they are sick when they come out in the daylight to feed. It was pitiful to see him continuously scratching and almost blinded by scabs all over his body and face. The mange looked like caked on mud.

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Fire at The Gurdies

11/2/2025

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The Gurdies Reserve: Richard Kemp always knew this day would come.

By Richard Kemp

I’ve lived at The Gurdies since 1957. I’ve seen my share of bush fires and I’ve fought in many. I fought my first fire in The Gurdies when I was 13. I’ve seen the destruction of the bush and the wildlife. In my 18 years at the GMH Proving Ground I spent eight years as the Fire Chief over 2200 acres of basically dense bush. It was a bit of a daunting job.

There’s always that fire risk if you live in the bush. I’ve always been aware that this day would happen one day. I’ve been in this house since 1972. I designed this place, I built it, I landscaped it. I said I’d never leave it. I thought I was prepared. The lawn in front of the house was cut short and was green. We’ve got a lot of English trees around the house that don’t burn real well. I had rigged up a powerful firefighting pump with a 50-metre hose and I was confident to stay and protect the house.

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My precious piece of Australia

17/8/2022

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Richard Kemp is privileged to share his patch of paradise with creatures great and small.

By Richard Kemp

I BOUGHT my acre and three-quarters bush block at The Gurdies in 1971for $1000. Back then nobody wanted this bit of worthless land. It was covered with a variety of tall trees, bushes, wild grasses, sword grass, wild orchids and dozens of species of ants, some not so nice.

I did have to clear an area to build my house but kept it to a minimum. I have tried to live with nature and damage as little as possible. A wide variety of creatures share my place, like black snakes, copper head snakes, tiger snakes, monitor lizards, blue tongue lizards, a variety of beautiful small lizards, echidna ant eaters, ring tail and brush tail possums and koalas (until people arrived with cats). I have had several wallabies and kangaroos come in and out of the property, along with wombats and marsupial rats.

The bird life is unbelievable: kookaburras, ravens, cockatoos, black cockatoos, king parrots, crimson parrots, rosellas, rainbow lorikeets, currawongs, galahs, gang gangs, magpies, grey shrike thrushes, new Holland honey eaters, wood pigeons, fire fly finches, willie wagtails, ducks, blue wrens, yellow robins, owls and the rare spotted pardalotes. There are many other species of small birds I need to identify. Wedge tailed eagles fly over from time to time, upsetting the local birds.

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My war on pittosporum

12/8/2021

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Don’t be fooled by the beautiful foliage and sweetly scented flowers of pittosporum: this plant is a monster.

By Richard Kemp

Pittosporum undulatum, or sweet pittosporum, as it is commonly known, is a small dark green tree with a beautiful canopy and a sweetly scented flower.

Don’t be fooled. This is not a good tree to have on your property. In fact it is one of the worst. It will have been seeded there possibly from a neighbouring tree. Maybe mine.

This species will grow rapidly, spreading its roots, sucking all the moisture out of the ground, at the same time smothering all your other trees by depriving them of sunlight. These are not large trees but they have an enormous root system.

Seed production on female trees is enormous. Each twig produces eight to 10 bright orange fruits. Each of these fruits has a pod containing about 20 seeds, attractively packaged for easy dispersal by birds, possums and other animals which in turn pass the seeds through their bodies to be deposited with fertiliser.

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Kings of the road

14/7/2021

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Richard Kemp recalls the glory days of the Lang Lang Proving Ground, when a day at work might include dodging roos, racing with ‘Brockie’ or seeing the greatest collection of pristine Holdens.

By Richard Kemp

My involvement with the Lang Lang Proving Ground was early and long. My father Maurice Kemp got the job of chief security officer as a promotion from Holden's Fishermans Bend plant. In early 1957 I went with him in his friend’s car and we did a tour of what had been started of the test track. I was 12 at the time.

The circular track had not been built except for the concrete underpass and it stood like a monolith in a lake of water. We could not see much of the area as the little Hillman could not handle the mud.

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