Maleny Botanic Gardens & Bird World must be one of the most scenic and peaceful establishments within one of Queensland’s most peaceful and scenic destinations. The facility is kept in fabulous condition by dedicated staff and some hard-working Bobcat equipment.
The area above Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, and especially the town of Maleny, have long been considered one of Australia’s most beautiful locations. Rolling green hills and valleys are home to coffee shops, boutique stores and quaint villages much sought after by in-the-know travellers.
A jewel in the crown of this gem of a region is the botanic garden – to give it its correct name, Maleny Botanic Gardens & Bird World. The immaculately presented panorama of horticultural magnificence is a lush green precinct of food, shopping, walk-through aviaries, and of course, impossibly gorgeous gardens.
Overseeing this amazing facility is someone who seems to radiate the joy and happiness reflected in the gardens themselves, General Manager Verena Olesch.
A dynamic duo
Care for an establishment like Maleny Botanic Gardens & Bird World – we’ll just call it Maleny Botanic Gardens – must have its stresses, but it’s not immediately obvious when speaking to the glowingly cheerful Verena.
“We have 23 acres of manicured gardens and pathways,” offered the smiling General Manager. “We have a lot of bitumen roads. We run a fleet of 20 golf carts for people because we’re on a very steep hill, so it’s a challenge for even able-bodied people to walk it.”
A considerable part of the maintenance and upkeep of the 23 acres is handled by two Bobcat machines, and if Verena seemed to be bubbling over with joy talking about the gardens, she positively beamed when speaking to Landscape Contractor of the Bobcats
“We have the E20z zero-tail-swing two-tonne excavator and the T450 PosiTrac tracked loader,” she listed, “and they’re good workhorses.”
“The excavator we use to dig trenches, holes and drains, and we plant stuff – ’cos we’ve got the auger attachment and a couple of buckets – and we use it for anything we might need to reach,” she offered. “It’s really a very flexible machine we can use for lots of different things.” The T450 has a bucket and a streetsweeper attachment, which, with the considerable network of roads and pathways to be maintained, gets a great deal of use. “A lot of people, probably 80 per cent of our guests, will hire a golf cart to get around,” detailed the enthusiastic Verena. “They use the concrete pathways, and once we found out there was a streetsweeper attachment, we were like, ‘Whoa. We need to have that’. “It’s definitely been a good thing.”
Happy staff
When we asked about the staff’s thoughts on the Bobcats, the response was as positive as we suspect just about everything is at Maleny Botanic Gardens.
“Really, really good!” beamed Verena. “They’re really happy.”
“We have our regular operators for the Bobcats who we know treat them with respect,” she smiled. “They are our precious machines.”
Maintenance and downtime are big considerations with any machinery, and as General Manager, Verena has to be across any problems the equipment might have. But it seems there just haven’t been any.
“I can’t think of any issues we’ve had with those two Bobcats,” she mused. “They’ve both been really good.”
“We maintain our equipment ourselves as much as we can,” she continued, “and if there are any issues we ring the experts at Clark Equipment. They’re basically the reason we stay with Bobcat: we get good service, we don’t have any issues, and if we did have an issue we know it would be dealt with.”
See the Bobcat range at bobcatofaustralia.com.au.