Over the years the bush land in Connolly, now known as Carnaby Reserve, has faced threats of destruction. In 1997 Landcorp proposed the building of a small housing development in the bush area east of Medina Mews but the Connolly Residents’Association managed to stop this development and the bush was retained.
In 2004 the WA Government and Main Roads WA announced that they would build the extension of the Mitchell Freeway from Hodges Drive through to Burns Beach Road, a 2 stage project.
The original design was totally devastating to Connolly with the road base of the freeway 9 metres above the ground opposite Connolly Primary School with a 2.9 metre noise wall on top of the supporting embankments. This would have meant destroying all the bush land between the freeway and Fairway Circle to create the embankments.
To put this into context, if you stand on the pedestrian bridge as it is now – that would have been the actual road base. Many Connolly residents banded together with residents from other suburbs and successfully fought that design even petitioning State Parliament.
As a result of this successful opposition, a Community Reference group was created as part of the consultation process and many Connolly residents served on this during the whole of the project taking part in meetings with Main Roads and Mc Mahon’s, the appointed construction company, and having a large input into the details of the final design and construction.
Friends of Carnaby Reserve
In 2009 Liz Farquhar, a Connolly Resident and Kings Park volunteer, was invited by the City to form a Friends’ Group to help maintain and preserve this exceptional area of bushland.
Four other volunteers were initially recruited, removing car tyres, cubbies with old mattresses and chairs, litter and dumped garden rubbish.
As more volunteers joined the group we were able to form two groups working on Sunday mornings and Wednesday afternoons removing weeds and grasses to enable the natives to grow unhindered. Small degraded areas were prepared and planted with plants grown from seed collected in the Reserve.
In May 2013, Liz gave us some very sad news that she was leaving Connolly to live nearer her family. A huge blow to all the volunteers but she left us with many happy memories of weeding days and evenings enjoying her hospitality with wine and supper.
Liz had photographed and identified many of the native shrubs and orchids in the Reserve mounting photographs on canvas – a pictorial library used to educate and inform interested residents.
During one of these meetings the subject of the surviving land between the freeway and Connolly was raised and it was suggested by Connolly residents that it be turned into a Nature Reserve. This idea had the full backing of the Main Roads WA Environmental Officer, Dinky Goble Garrett who was delighted that this bush land would be retained as it was a feeding and resting habitat for the Carnaby Cockatoos. Main Roads, McMahons and the City of Joondalup all came on board the project, with McMahons at times altering plans to avoid removing old trees and bush land – the tree in the middle of the pedestrian bridge is just one example.
Main Roads and the City of Joondalup worked together and eventually a path was created from the kissing gate on Fairway Circle to Shenton Avenue. Main Roads paid for the construction of suitably strong fence opposite the school area and Dinky became involved with Connolly Primary School and organised for the students to grow some of the plants needed for revegetation from locally sourced seeds. Children from the school proudly planted these carefully grown plants in some of those areas that had been damaged during the construction.
The Reserve area was eventually named Carnaby Reserve and a date was set for the formal opening in August 2009. Sadly, Dinky became seriously ill and passed away before seeing all her hard work and support come to fruition. Main Roads WA persuaded the City of Joondalup to allow a bench in her name to be placed in the Reserve, one of only 4 in the whole of the City of Joondalup. On the day that this seat was dedicated to her in a small ceremony attended by her partner, representatives from Main Roads, the City of Joondalup and McMahons, members of the Reference Group and other residents, a large flock of 30 or more Carnaby Cockatoos flew overhead as the speeches ended, a spine tingling moment which proved what an asset the Reserve is to these beautiful birds and to Connolly.
In 2015 the Group, keen to revegetate areas left bare by vehicles laying the limestone path and old pathways, began with a large section on the firebreak. The City provided us with small natives and, as an experiment, prepared seeds (again collected from the Reserve) for direct seeding. This proved to be a huge success so much so that other friends groups are now collecting seed to supplement planting. Two other areas on the Northern path were planted in 2016 and the remainder in 2017 and 2018.
By 2018 the Friends group consisted of 11 members working on alternate Sunday mornings and each Wednesday afternoon and, with monies contributed jointly by the CRA and the City, had provided the first interpretive signs at 3 points in the Reserve
In 2019 the Friends Group was successful in gaining the cooperation of the City to provide permanent fencing from the kissing gate to Medinah Mews and revegetating the verge fronting Fairway Circle thus completing the enclosure of the Reserve.
