Water Spaces
One of two memorable sounds of water to me has been the gully in flood above our house flowing into the Wallam Creek.
Often after periods of dry weather the heavy rains would arrive at night. With torch in hand and the rain hitting my plastic blue hooded coat , Harry and I would walk toward the creek to witness the rising levels and experience the loud chorus of frogs often more than once during the night. These sounds represented a change of the everyday chores of keeping water up to stock and garden and at times to the house and therefore the sound was joyful in anticipation of this. But also it felt like there was something bigger that you were being immersed and swallowed into. Tim Winton has written similar experiences in his article Wild Brown Land who feels 'thin skinned' and a 'craving for physical sensation, to be in a dynamic, living system.(Winton 2013)
The other sound is the almost silent bubbling of the mound springs at Lake Eyre, Wabma Kadarbu Conservation Park. The vast and sparse landscape of the Lake Eyre environs magnifies the bubbling of water as if to vocalise the monumental significance to its existence.
Both these water phenomena determined the existence of routes, firstly by indigenous peoples and then as stock routes and establishment of properties. In the case of the springs, the Overland Telegraph and the Ghan railway line.
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| Looking toward gully and Wallam creek from house at dawn. 2006. |
Often after periods of dry weather the heavy rains would arrive at night. With torch in hand and the rain hitting my plastic blue hooded coat , Harry and I would walk toward the creek to witness the rising levels and experience the loud chorus of frogs often more than once during the night. These sounds represented a change of the everyday chores of keeping water up to stock and garden and at times to the house and therefore the sound was joyful in anticipation of this. But also it felt like there was something bigger that you were being immersed and swallowed into. Tim Winton has written similar experiences in his article Wild Brown Land who feels 'thin skinned' and a 'craving for physical sensation, to be in a dynamic, living system.(Winton 2013)
The other sound is the almost silent bubbling of the mound springs at Lake Eyre, Wabma Kadarbu Conservation Park. The vast and sparse landscape of the Lake Eyre environs magnifies the bubbling of water as if to vocalise the monumental significance to its existence.
Both these water phenomena determined the existence of routes, firstly by indigenous peoples and then as stock routes and establishment of properties. In the case of the springs, the Overland Telegraph and the Ghan railway line.
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