Tim the Yowie Man: Who is building stick houses on Mt Ainslie?

"The total number of rocks in the cairn is around 13,000," estimated Ken McQueen, adjunct professor at the Institute for Applied Ecology, University of Canberra. According to McQueen, "if just a third of these rocks were originally home to critters, this would represent 4330 critters homes lost."

Now it appears that Canberra's brazen bush artists have struck again, this time using fallen timber to create a number of stick houses. While unlikely to be the handiwork of the same stealthy sculptors responsible for the growing rock cairn, it's clear that extensive endeavour has gone into their construction.

"These stick houses are popping up all over our nature reserves", reveals bushwalker John Evans, who earlier this week, stumbled upon similar structures on both the lower slopes of Mt Ainslie as well as Farrer Ridge.

"Perhaps they are the next stage of bushland public art, taking over from the ubiquitous rock piles," he reports.

"Someone has expended considerable effort to build them, so please just admire them", pleads Evans, adding "at least young ones (or are the builders big kids?) are leaving their screens and getting outdoors to breathe a bit of fresh air."

Eager to find any clues as to the identity of its builder, this week your akubra-clad columnist ventured into the Canberra Nature Park to take a peek at the Ainslie stick house (it's only a hundred metres or so behind Fisher Street). Within sight of the busy multi-purpose dirt track which runs behind Duffy Street, its creators have done little to conceal it. In fact, somewhat curiously, guarding its entrance were three toy pigs, either left by its creator or perhaps a nearby resident with a soft spot for the fable 'The Three Little Pigs' who famously built a house of sticks only to have the big bad wolf blow it down.

With a stiff afternoon breeze doing its best job of impersonating 'a big bad wolf,' while it looked sturdy enough, not wanting to be potentially trapped under a mountain of dead wood, I stopped short of crawling inside.

The Red Hill Regenerators, a community group that has been caring for Red Hill for over a quarter of a century, generally turn a blind eye to these small-scale cubbies. "We aren't opposed them, in fact we encourage children to play on the hill, but in the woodland itself and not in the vicinity of the tip," explains founding regenerator Michael Mulvaney.

Mulvaney's view on larger-scale structures isn't as forgiving. "They should be viewed as natural sculptures which may be ok in some locations but could be devastating if built in the wrong location," explains Mulvaney, adding, "for example the rare Small Ant-blue butterfly (Acrodipsas myrmecophila ) is only known to occur in two locations in ACT's woodlands. It spends its caterpillar stage in the nest of a particular ant that builds its nests in fallen timber. If this timber was collected to build a natural sculpture – good bye butterfly.

"Similarly, they could inadvertently shade-out the only ACT occurrence of a rare orchid," argues Mulvaney who believes "if people want to build significant constructions they should be at least subject to the same level of approval as other park constructions such as walking tracks, telecommunication facilities or stock watering facilities."

Mulvaney's sentiments are shared by park authorities. "Our rangers want kids to have fun in cubbies but only where they cause minimal damage to the environment," says ACT Parks and Conservation Service director Daniel Iglesias, adding "it all comes down to a matter of scale and impact".

"Please don't build larger resource-intensive cubbies and if you see such a thing under construction, a quiet respectful word with the builders usually does the trick," advises Iglesias, who also warns "in building your cubby, you are using the homes of our native plants and animals which could quite reasonably bite or sting in response".

What's your take on the stick-houses? A rite of passage for kids in the bush capital and just harmless fun, or environmental vandalism?

Since 2005, several other unsolicited 'bush artworks' have mysteriously appeared in the readily-accessible Mount Majura and Mount Ainslie nature reserves, these include a large treehouse and a labyrinth.

Origins: Although initially keeping hush about its construction, in 2012, Pele Cannon, one of its creators, confessed to this column to handcrafting the covert cubby "over a few weekends in 2011 with some university friends".

Construction: A back-to-basics design with a 4x3-metre platform elevated two metres above the ground. According to Cannon, "we didn't use any nails, it was all supported by forked branches we found, and all the timber was already on the ground."

Current status: In late 2012, the treehouse, located on Majura's northern slopes, was mysteriously dismantled. According to Cannon who visited the site soon afterwards, "not a skerrick of it was left behind".

Origins: This 12-metre bush labyrinth, which its creator local artist Julie Rickwood named 'Five Senses', took over 18 months to construct and was first walked on June 21 (the winter solstice) in 2006.

Construction: Meticulously laid out using branches, sticks and small stones. The labyrinth seems to have become a drawcard for artistic flair for when I walked the labyrinth earlier this week, I counted four stone circles and over a dozen small-scale cubbies dotted in the scrub nearby.

Current status: Over the last 12 years, a merry band of community-minded labyrinth aficionados regularly maintain it by moving sticks blown off the path or dislodged by kangaroos and other animals. Located in the middle, or 'goal', is a wooden treasure chest which contains a scroll describing the origins of the labyrinth along with a mix of shells, stones and other 'offerings'. There is also a visitors' book, complete with hundreds of signatures.

Intriguingly, a Mt Ainslie cubby isn't the only place toy pigs have popped up this week.

Welcoming visitors to the village of Collector, just north of Canberra, are three like-size cartoon pigs.

"They are part of an artistic display for our upcoming pumpkin festival," explains Gary Poile, head honcho of the annual shindig, who steadfastly denies any possible connection between the Collector pigs and those on Mt Ainslie.

"Our pigs are part of a display on 'Sean the Sheep', and in no way are related to the nursery rhyme of the three little pigs," dismisses Poile.

"Any link is tenuous at best," he asserts, musing "if for some reason we wanted to promote the festival through building stick houses everywhere, we'd have left pumpkins in them, not toy pigs!"

Given the proliferation of bush cubbies in Canberra, maybe Poile should add a cubby building challenge to rival the festival's hugely popular scarecrow building competition. Who knows, it might even flush out those responsible for the Ainslie creation.

For the record, the Collector Village Pumpkin Festival is on between 10am and 4pm on Sunday, May 6.

Having a whale of a time

This column's exposé on the Batemans Bay (Long Beach) whale bone seat prompted Colin Smeal of Holder to send in this photo of a humpback whale skull he stumbled upon during a recent camping trip to Moreton Island.

"It was just sitting there in the middle of the beach," reports Smeal.

Meanwhile John Taverner of Manuka Pool fame, and now of Jerrabomberra, reports that he and his sister, Su "vividly recall the huge whale bone of Long Beach".

"Mum and Dad decided to spend the winter of 1964 at our shack at Long Beach," reports Taverner, adding, "down the south end of beach was a general store run by Clarrie and Babe Blair, where the few locals could buy the basics like fresh bread, creamy milk and old-fashioned lollies.

"Clarrie and Babe were quite the local characters, Babe with her long red painted nails and Clarrie with his wonderful stories of local history," recalls Taverner, adding "one such story was the accidental bombing of the whale featured in your column, the one mistaken for a Japanese submarine in 1942."

"I remember saying to Dad, "hey it was 80 feet long and weighed 80 tons, that means one ton for every one foot," says Taverner, who adds "dad was most impressed with my calculation."

Taverner reports that he had "a whale of a time" during his winter sojourn at Long Beach. "It was a wholly wonderful experience at a three-teacher country school; not only did we make friends, but we were so impressed with our free quota of fresh local flavoured milk each school day," he recalls.

Ah, them were the days.

Cryptic Clue: Not far from the 'seven wonders of D'.

Degree of difficulty: Medium – Hard

Last week: Congratulations to Paul Imhoff of Florey who was the first reader to correctly identify last week's photo, sent in by Terry Mowle, as a former footbridge over a low flowing Molonglo River just upstream from its confluence with the Murrumbidgee River. Imhoff explains the bridge, which has been replaced several times due to floods, "links the Shepherds Lookout walk to the Uriarra Loop Track". He just beat Ian Loiterton to the prize. Meanwhile, Steve Hill of Kambah, who has "crossed it numerous times", reports it's a great location for spying on platypus. "I've spotted several of them near the bridge," he reveals.

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to timtheyowieman@bigpond.com. The first email sent after 10am, Saturday April 14, 2018, will win a double pass to Dendy.