{"id":674,"date":"2010-10-24T15:14:24","date_gmt":"2010-10-24T05:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meganix.net\/pavement\/?p=674"},"modified":"2010-11-19T14:27:08","modified_gmt":"2010-11-19T04:27:08","slug":"silverton-guest-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meganix.net\/pavement\/2010\/10\/24\/silverton-guest-spot\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing on water – thoughts from Silverton (Guest spot)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week’s post was written by guest spotter Julian Holland<\/strong>, who is a science curator and historian. Julian has been travelling recently in far western New South Wales. <\/em><\/p>\n

Water \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and there is a steady insistent drizzle as I write \u00e2\u20ac\u201c water remains the central conundrum of the European experiment in settling Australia.\u00c2\u00a0 Water is invisible in most of the Australian landscape most of the time.\u00c2\u00a0 But sometimes \u00e2\u20ac\u201c at rare intervals \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it appears in abundance, even excess.\u00c2\u00a0 Much of the drive for Australia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exploration in the nineteenth century was the search for water \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for an inland sea around which agriculture could develop and for navigable rivers which could transport people and produce to markets.<\/p>\n

But the explorers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 quest gave way to the reality of Goyder\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Line, the boundary in South Australia beyond which rainfall could not be relied on for agriculture.\u00c2\u00a0 The disjunction is marked on the landscape by a sudden shift in the character of vegetation.<\/p>\n

Yet the myth of water remains powerful.\u00c2\u00a0 In the old school house museum in Silverton, beyond Broken Hill, plastic stencils of different states reminded me of this.\u00c2\u00a0 Apart from their boundaries \u00e2\u20ac\u201c coast lines and surveyors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 lines \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the only features they could guide a child\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pencil along were the courses of rivers and boundaries of lakes, patterning impressionable brains with the idea of water in the landscape.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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But South Australia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lakes are salt pans.\u00c2\u00a0 And perhaps the stencil-joints along the rivers should be read more literally.\u00c2\u00a0 Australia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rivers are often no more than strings of waterholes.<\/div>\n
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The river that runs through Silverton, Umberumberka Creek, most of the time doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t run anywhere.\u00c2\u00a0 It is a river of sand.\u00c2\u00a0 It is characteristic of Australia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dry land rivers, visible in the landscape as a ribbon of larger trees, their roots embracing the invisible river below the sand.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Instead of the ephemeral ripples of wind or insect or falling leaf \u00e2\u20ac\u201c or the splash of oars \u00e2\u20ac\u201c these rivers of sand carry slightly more enduring inscriptions.<\/p>\n

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Heading back to Broken Hill, on the outskirts of Silverton, the road bows down in courtesy to a passing creek \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a feeder to the Umberumberka \u00e2\u20ac\u201c dry too much of the time to warrant a bridge, the possibility of water, or the probability of its absence, marked by lines and depth measures of 0.50 and 1.00 metres.\u00c2\u00a0 We inscribe the landscape and the landscape is inscribed in us.\u00c2\u00a0 The two landscapes\u00c2\u00a0do not always match.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s post was written by guest spotter Julian Holland, who is a science curator and historian. Julian has been travelling recently in far western New South Wales. Water \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and there is a steady insistent drizzle as I write \u00e2\u20ac\u201c water remains the central conundrum of the European experiment in settling Australia.\u00c2\u00a0 Water is <\/p>\n

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