Don't let the newly sunny skies give you the wrong impression - Illawarra residents and visitors are being told now is not the weekend for a picnic in the park.
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Wollongong City Council says people should find another option besides lazing on the picnic blanket in a park - because the ground is still too soggy following weeks of heavy rain.
"If you try and walk on the grass anywhere in our city at the moment it is really spongy and boggy - you just wouldn't want to try the traditional Easter long weekend picnic where you spend a lazy day on a picnic rug in the sunshine," Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery said.
"This is the year to try something new - or to find a new favourite picnic table like the ones in the Wollongong Botanic Garden.''
Sporting fields are still off-limits to gameplay and mowing efforts are taking longer as heavy machinery is likely to damage the parks' surface when it's this wet.
But even the mowed parks are likely to be soggy underfoot.
"We've left the heavy garden machinery in storage for the moment and right now we have our teams out using whipper snippers and traditional hand mowers to cut the grass in parks and sport fields where it is safe to do so,'' council general manager Greg Doyle said.
"You'll notice in some public spaces they've been able to cut around the border or the outside of a grassed area and have left the very wet parts alone. We know this isn't necessarily the parkland aesthetic we would like, but it does provide improved access to some areas that might be drier than others. It also provides kids a place to run, and dog owners a space to exercise their pets out of the long grass."
Mr Doyle said council workers had been out assessing damage to infrastructure, including roads and bridges, and cleaning debris, and the potholes crew repaired more than 220 priority potholes last weekend.
"We've left the heavy garden machinery in storage for the moment and right now we have our teams out using whipper snippers and traditional hand mowers to cut the grass in parks and sport fields where it is safe to do so,'' Mr Doyle said.
"You'll notice in some public spaces they've been able to cut around the border or the outside of a grassed area and have left the very wet parts alone. We know this isn't necessarily the parkland aesthetic we would like, but it does provide improved access to some areas that might be drier than others. It also provides kids a place to run, and dog owners a space to exercise their pets out of the long grass.
"There is no overnight fix for our city's greenspaces thanks to all this rain. But I assure our community where we can our teams are out doing their best to provide safe assess to our valued public spaces.''
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Ben Langford
Senior journalist writing on the environment. Opinion columnist, independent. We rely on your news tips so please, don't be shy to let us know what's going on.
Senior journalist writing on the environment. Opinion columnist, independent. We rely on your news tips so please, don't be shy to let us know what's going on.
