Thoughtfactory: Pictures, Images, Video

We stayed at Cowra whilst on a small road trip to Canberra and Melbourne in August. I wanted to have a look at the Lachlan River as it is part of the Murrumbidgee catchment and hence a part of the Murray-Darling Basin. The river, which starts near near Goulburn in the Great Dividing Range, is impounded by the headwater  Wyangala Dam. The river is highly regulated with weirs and damed lakes for…

In 1844 Charles Sturt spent a couple of years looking for the inland sea. In 1827, a former East India Company officer Thomas J. Maslen published this map of that inland sea in his book The Friend of Australia, which provided instructions for surveying and exploring the island-continent’s interior. It was a popular colonial belief that a continent the size of Australia must hold a major river…

Early morning light on tree roots in Benbibuta Creek in the northern Flinders Ranges. Benbibuta Creek, Flinders Ranges This was made whilst I was on a camel trek from Blinman to Lake Frome in 2021.

This picture of dead carp on the beach at Petrel Cove is is an indication of the failure to ensure the ecological health of the Murray-Darling Basin.

The picture below is an indication of the failure to ensure the ecological health of the Murray-Darling Basin. This is dead baby carp washed up on the beach of Petrel Cove, that is west of the Murray Mouth. They are from a flooded River Murray. It indicates that restoring health to the Basin’s rivers is more complex than reining in the water extracted by farmers and making sure that the…

It was on the Bararranna George walk that a photographic project started to emerge:--abstractions of deep geological time that is prior to human habitation on earth.

Monday (July 25th) was the Bararranna Gorge walk. We had walked the Bararraanna Gorge trail last year. We remembered the various waterholes, the Sturt Desert peas in the creek beds and the rock formations in the gorges. The bushwalking groups deem it to be moderately challenging (C+) and it is a popular walk. It is about 8.4-km loop trail that starts near the old Monarch mine site then we walk…

The Marne River in the Eastern Mr Lofty Ranges region of South Australia emerges from Eden Valley on the eastern slopes of the Mount Lofty Ranges — rises west of Springton in the Eden Valley. It flows in an easterly direction where it eventually discharges into the River Murray near Wongulla to the north of Walker Flat.  The photo below is of the Marne River in early spring which flows near the…

Early in the morning on Pental Island near Swan Hill in Victoria circa 2020.

This was early in the morning on Pental Island near Swan Hill in Victoria circa 2020. It was a little sanctuary beside the meandering Little Murray River; a sanctuary surrounded by a world of intensive irrigated agriculture and thirsty crops. The Little Murray River is also known the Marraboor River, and it is an anabranch of the Murray River with the Marraboor River and the Murray River…

Given the culture of development-at-all-costs and the long history of flawed environmental management the Murray-Darling river system is a shadow of its former self.

The photos below shown the condition of the Darling River north of Wentworth in NSW. They were made at a bridge near Pooncarie around April of 2018, just before the drought broke and the Medindee fish kill. This was just after Barnaby Joyce, as the Federal Water Minister in the Turnbull Government, had been using his power to actively undermine the Basin Plan. This was just after the time when…

The Coorong wetlands on the coast of South Australia have a history of being in constant transition and change. This shifting movement between sea, freshwater and land has fostered various forms of life.

The Coorong wetlands on the coast of South Australia have a history of being in constant transition and change. This shifting movement between sea, freshwater and land has fostered various forms of life. The Coorong is a Ramsar-listed wetland and so these shallow, dynamic lagoons are often seen as natural, given that they are a national park. But the Coorong, which is a liminal place that marks…

Living in the flood country of Murray-Darling Basin means living with droughts and floods, with rivers that move and floodplains that change and with no two floods being the same.

I am currently reading Emily O’Gorman’s 2012 Flood Country: An Environmental History of the Murray-Darling Basin (CSIRO Publishing) in the context of the large 2022-23 summer flood of the River Murray was due to the torrential rain caused by a La Niña weather event. This flood had a noticeable impact on the coastal foreshore around the mouth the River Murray. O’Gorman’s’ text in the…

The various rivers in the Murray-Darling Basin often run dry during the frequent droughts and then they flood when the drought breaks and the heavy rains fall. Once such flood event happened during the November 2022-February 2023 period to the heavily

The various rivers in the Murray-Darling Basin often run dry during the frequent droughts and then they flood when the drought breaks and the heavy rains fall. The history of floods in the Murray-Darling Basin show that they are crucial sources of water for people, animals and plants in this often dry region of inland Australia. Once such flood event happened during the November 2022-February…

A photo session at the Echo Cliffs of Balcanoona Creek near the National Park HQ in the Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park.

Sunday (24/7/2022) was a rest day. We cleaned up Nudlamutana Hut in the morning then drove up to Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary  for petrol, mobile connection and an ice cream. On the way back we looked for the Ochre Wall on the road to the Paralana Hot Springs. In the late afternoon I drove to the Echo Cliffs of Balcanoona Creek near the National Park HQ at the old Balcanoona Station for a 5×4…

The effects of the war on nature by irrigation communities in the Murray-Darling Basin

One of the popular white settler views around Federation was the need to create a culture and society premised on the conquest of nature; that human beings needed to establish mastery domination over nature; the natural world was seen as waste; and it was a waste to let the flowing water of the rivers in the Murray-Darling Basin run to the sea. The society that was to be established was an…

I last photographed along the Murray River in 2019 when I explored the area around Lake Bonney, Barmera and the Overland Corner in South Australia. I had intended to return to Lake Bonney with a large format camera, then the Covid-19 pandemic happened. I haven’t returned to the river since. It is time I did so. I have started reading though. I am currently reading Margaret Simons’ quarterly…

We drove the 30 or so kilometers on the Gammon Ranges Road from the Nudlamutana Hut to the Italowie Gap campsite going past Balcanoona Station and the nearby Echo cliffs. I wandered around the Gap taking photos of the traces of pastoralism before we started the walk to the gorge around 10am. The plan was to reach to Italowie Gorge around lunch time, then make our way back to the campsite. The…

its a wounded country

This is a picture of the Little Murray River near Lake Boga which is close to Swan Hill in Victoria. My camp was very close to the Little Murray, which is an anabranch of the River Murray. I spent a lot of my time at Lake Boga walking along the banks of the river, which is a shadow of its original self. I was taken back by the extent of the low water levels of the river. This was a year or so…