paulry

SpouseOfScouse posted this link in "The Lounge" but it's too good not to share it with us Aussies too.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-...ties/100114088

Amazulu

Cool. Things returning to normal - nothing to do with that climate change bullshit. Australia is, always has been, and always will be a land of stark contrasts - wet then dry, feast or famine. Luckily, there's a lot of agriculture and given the size of the country, when one area is wet and green, another area may not be. Basically, Australia has 25 million people yet feeds 75 million to a first world standard. Now that's some achievement

paulry

I completely agree with all of that. The only place in the world that I've been where I'm seeing continual and steady improvements.

I was at two of Canberra's water supply dams recently with my drone. Both dams are full and spilling over. Such a great sight to see - especially given that the main dam when we moved here had around one third of the capacity that it has today (a new and much bigger wall has since been built), and even then it was only something like 28% full thanks to the drought cycles that this country is famous for.

On top of that we have tough and resourceful people who can yield so much from the this generally desiccated land.

paulry

Just checked out the Darling River using Google Maps. What a loooong river! Looking at the town called Wilcannia, which must be around 500km inland, it still looks like a significant river, complete with a raisable bridge built to allow paddle steamers to pass back in the 19th century. Imagine doing a canoe adventure down the length of that! I wonder if it's possible to take a small 2 berth cabin cruiser down it, like those we see on the Thames?

Edit: It looks like its not navigable with even a small cabin cruiser because it has a lot of weirs, and not necessarily locks. But canoeing looks very possible on all 1690kms of it!

https://www.murraydarlingjourneys.id...ver-canoe-trip