Will Wyperfeld get wet?

[vagrom]

I'm hoping that all the water heading for Lake Hindmarsh, after last September's beginning, might be enough to push on into Lake Albacutya. But perhaps that'll take successive years? And thence into Wyperfeld. Possibly 1976 was the last big water there; canoeing in Lake Brambuk. Do we have any walkers from west Vic here?

[vagrom]

Just checked out Geoff Durham's book; Wyperfeld: Australia's First Mallee National Park. It must be the best book by a Friends group anywhere, with so much info yet portably small, about a quiet place, way up in the sticks, where the Allocasuarina Luehmannii whispers in the breeze. High dune country and a settler history of life lived on the margins of the good earth.
Go there anytime but Summer.

There's a photo of the first park ranger, Rudd Campbell, face and a smile of a man of the land. A couple of tourists came running up to him one day, frantic about a barbeque fire they'd lit in an old Redgum stump. "'We tried wooden barbeques years ago', he told them laconically, 'but they were never successful".

Water flowing north up the Wimmera last reach the Wirrengren Plain, a massive, great area, surrounded by high dunes, in 1874.

Excellent, basic camping facilities and an ever open museum in the southern, Wonga campground. Get there via Rainbow. Blackwood have a beautiful song about the area, Wind Harps, on their CD Never at Home.

[crockle]

It's a great place - agreed. I've been there a few times, including in Summer, when it *really was warm!*.
I would love to see some water in Lake Albacutya - I was first there as a child - I'd say a couple of years after the "last big water" mentioned. I remember Brambuk as reedy, muddy, swampy, but not navigable. Although there are some big old canoe trees visible nearby from an earlier time..
Last time I visited I went to camp at the (northern) Casuarina campground - the place was one giant anthill - there were just millions of ants crawling over everything in sight.
Retreated to the main Wonga campground - the only 2 people in this extensive campground - and experienced a Mallee night sky that seemed to go on for ever - the most incredible belt of stars thrown against a black tarpaulin I think I've ever seen.

(thanks for mention of the book - will try and keep an eye out for a copy.)

[vagrom]

Yes Crockle,
truly special. I walked through from Patche to Nypo, after catching the bus to Walpeup and hitching down.
The book may be hard to get now, however you can no doubt check it out through your local library system.

[trickos]

probably pretty wet now, you would think?

[vagrom]

Thinking the same thing but reminded yet again just how useless the web can be sometimes , when specific,up to date information is needed. So best to call the local Parks office, I suppose.
It's hard to believe that all that water now at Horsham isn't going to see some trickle through, at least to Albacutya. But after such a long dry, it may indeed take successive flood years to get up to Brambuk, let alone to the great plain. The flooding rain's all fallen further to the south-east. I've heard Jeparit's had some trouble , but nothing from Rainbow.

[Ron Hateley]

The answer is a confident yes.

I paddled a canoe in Wyperfeld in the 1970s, one I think we borrowed from Rudd Campbell. He was one of my father's best mates as they were both park rangers (Dad looked after the Little Desert).

This quote from my recently published book may be of interest:

Wirringren Plain which is about five miles wide and ten long, and all the level country around, becomes in seasons of great floods the receptacle for all the waters of the River Wimmera after Lakes Hindmarsh and Albacutya are filled to overflowing. That a great flood has taken place a few years ago the whole of the plains furnish abundant evidence; but the same indications prove satisfactorily that such an overflow is of rare occurrence, probably not oftener than once in fifty years. We found, on enquiry, that the last great flood had been in the year 1852. The whole level country had then been submerged to the depth of from ten to fifteen and twenty feet, as is still apparent by the marks on the pine and box forests which it killed. Every kind of tree and shrub had perished except the redgum. The trees of the pine and box forests so killed must have been at the time from forty to sixty years old.

This was written by William Lockhart Morton, who called himself 'The Old Bushman' in 1861. I followed the quote with the statement 'This must have been an extreme event, and it occurred without human intervention. With modern river regulation, it is very unlikely to happen again'. How wrong I was, as the present flood heads down the river from Dimboola and I wonder where that enormous amount of water will end up. The next edition of the book will include a disclaimer.

If you're interested as I follow the progress of the flood, I can be contacted at ronaldh@unimelb.edu.au.

Ron Hateley

[vagrom]

Thanks Ron, then it must be your dad who features in the Rigby book of the 70's, The Little Desert by Thiele and Burt. Some very beautiful photography. He was associated with the setting up the Lowan bird sanctuary, I think. I'll have to go home and have a look at ther book again.
Still can't imagine it's going to get all the way to Wirrengren, but here's hoping.

[Ron Hateley]

Yes, vagrom

That was my father, who was my mentor and my inspiration, and who achieved wonderful success in conservation of Victoria's wild places. It took six years to write 'The Victorian Bush: its original and natural condition' and Dad was in the back of my mind during the whole time.

He'd be surprised by some of my findings about the myth of aboriginal burning and the extent of treeless areas, but not some others like the 1897 tornadoes and the 1852 flood. I wish he was here to read the book.

[Bill P]

Hi Ron,

Lovely story. Can you recall how long Wirringren was paddleable for in the 70's?

I'd seen some pics of kayakers there after that flood and then determined that I'd drop everything to go & paddle there if the opportunity ever arose again. Everyone I've mentioned this ambition to, in the last 25 years has said " Don't worry mate- it'll never happen again"

Here's hoping some some good will come out of this flood.

Bill P

[Ron Hateley]

Sorry Bill

I can't recall exactly, but it was certainly several months. I do know, however, that the flood height was nothing like that quoted by 'The Old Bushman' in my book. He described how the 1852 flood had killed large areas of Callitris woodland, and that did not happen in the 1970s. He stated that 'every kind of tree and shrub had perished'. That would have required a long period of inundation and it's difficult to predict whether this could happen again this year or next. It would almost certainly need another extreme rainfall event, like the two we've had recently in central Victoria, to occur within the next twelve months.

He also recorded another extreme event on 19 June 1861 where woodlands near Wyperfield had been damaged and 'large angular pieces of ice must have fallen'.

Morton is a reliable witness although when I first read his stuff I thought he must have been exaggerating. I'm sure now that he was not.

I said in a radio interview (not yet broadcast) today that we Europeans have only been here 200 years and that's not long enough for us to understand how nature works in southern Australia. I quoted the tornadoes of 1897 as an example. Bushwalkers will be amazed at the damage in the Grampians if they have a look at the ABC local station's website.

[trickos]

Here's that website of the Grampians photos, thanks Ron.
My God, thats an awful lot of damage......


http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2011 ... =melbourne

[Bill P]

Wow great pics. The Mt William gauge recorded 135mm on the 12th and 133mm on the 14th Jan.

Stoney creek was running too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LLGJdg0sZk

Interesting that the Mt Abrupt landslide ( & some other smaller ones ) weren't in areas that were weakened by the Mt Lubra fire.

Bill P

[vagrom]

"Since 1900, flows have been much reduced and Albacutya has overflowed on only four occasions: (1910,1917,1957,) 1975-76."
-Got as far as Black Flat and Lake Brambuk in 1976, " ..dried out in November 1977".
Lakes Brimin and Agnes, not since 1918.

"...,Wirrengren Plain, a huge dry lake bed which has not had water since 1874. It is believed to have flooded in 1830-34. There are reports of a massive flood in 1853 when water in Wirrengren Plain was over 11 kilometres long, 5 kilometres wide and 3.6 metres deep."
Durham,Geoff (2001), Wyperfeld: Australia's First Mallee National Park. He sources Kenyon's 1912 The Story of the Mallee
Wood Publications, Rainbow(!)

It never rains and then it pours. Spotted in the South Australian Geo.Journal 1987 : "Bye et al determined that Lake Eyre stored 30.1 km3 during this (1974-77) event. Although this is an appreciable quantity of water, equal to some 170 years of present water consumption in Adelaide, evaporation from the filled lake Eyre exceeds 16 km3/year and consequently without additional inflows the lake dried up in less than two years." (p.45)

Does anyone know how many Olympic sized swimming pools it takes to fill Sydney Harbour? (Towards an Aussie volumetrics).

[ Pool: 2.5 ML; Harbour: 562,000 ML or 1/2km3. Hume Dam is >5x Sydney Harbour. ... Pedder: 3km3, Gordon: 12km3 ]

[crockle]

..reminded yet again just how useless the web can be sometimes , when specific,up to date information is needed. So best to call the local Parks office, I suppose.
It's hard to believe that all that water now at Horsham isn't going to see some trickle through, at least to Albacutya.

Does anyone know current wetness levels - Lake Albacutya ?

[vagrom]

Get on the dog and bone to Parks, Crockle. It's a local call for you (?)

[crockle]

Never mind the phonecall vagrom (it's only the cost of a local call via the questionable miracle of VOIP, but never mind that)
What I'm REALLY REALLY tempted to do is just get in the damned car and go there

Um, obviously, I'd ring Parks before going if I actually went, as my spur of the moment Jack Kerouac thing would look foolish if the area turned out dry as a bone.
Rethinking that even, I wouldn't even mind no water.

Right, I'm going to either rethink this , or do something foolish...

[vagrom]

There's a shop at Rainbow. They'd know for sure? It's a decent sized little metropolis actually.

[vagrom]

Strewth Crockle!
Don't do anything precipitous; noone's calling your bluff...
I've just dashed off an email to the Newsagent(White Pages) to see what he knows, but someone down the pub might know.
Rainbow Eureka Hotel: (03)5395 1001.
I'd call myself but i'm blissfully free of the Telco fiends at the moment.

[crockle]

The pub you say ?

I'm on my way . . .

[vagrom]

View Halooo!!

[Bill P]

Update from a local: " No water in Albacutya yet, Hindmarsh is about 80% full."

Bill P

[crockle]

Thanks Bill p .
I've been detained. Mistakenly walked into a pub in the Northcote area, asking the baffled locals about water in Lake Albacutya. Not able to help with information, they invited me to stay for a cleansing draught or two ...

[Bill P]

Ha Ha "MIstakenly walked into a pub", or "Mistakenly asking locals". I'd never thought the former was possible, crockle!.

Just rereading Wyperfeld Friends, looks like there's more than 80km of Outlet Ck and a dozen small lakes to paddle between Albacutya & Wirrringren. If wet.

I wonder how Kenyon worked out that it was wet from 1830-34?. The Major didn't come through until 1836, and he had a squizz off Arapiles, but its a long look from there.

Maybe earlier floods are worked out from botanical methods or flotsam heights etc.

Bill P

[vagrom]

Northcote?!! SAY NO MORE!!

The locals did a heritage bushwalk along the Outlet Creek about three years ago, from Albacutya up to Wyperfeld. Lots of history to the area; a German mission, Pela, and another chap who set up on his own, his own garden near a soak, further west of the mission.
All water to the area is now piped and occasional letters in Grass Roots from new locals invite people to consider the Mallee if looking for a sea change. Tempting for the long Tassie winter?