[woofa.express]

Part 2 of 2.
Lake Victoria NSW. Continued.


Lake Victoria NSW is about 50 miles WNW of the Murray River town of Mildura. I spoke about it last story. Mildura has an airstrip which was a war time pilot training base. It was common practise for trainee pilots to fly 2 at a time and “shadow shoot” which meant the second aeroplane shooting at the shadow of the first. The purpose being to practise on a moving target. Of course aeroplanes and pilots were lost, one in the lake. Local fishermen offered assistance to locate the wreckage but the military declined because they knew it all. When the fruitless search was abandoned the fishermen located and recovered it.Today there are no commercial fishermen on the Murray River system. European Carp were introduced to keep the river free of weed. Whilst this was a success it made the water turbid as well as decimating native fish population and it changed the whole ecology of the river for the worse. We are now in early summer. Lake Victoria has been drained. The lake systems on the Darling River have been drained. Why? So as the South Australian lake towns can have fresh water for recreation. These lakes have been traditionally salt water, estuarine, as they form part of the river mouth to the sea. The S.A farmers have had 100% of their water allocation and I don’t begrudge them as there was sufficient water in the Murray system to give all farmers upstream a full allocation as well. Our local farmers and others have a nil allocation for now the second year. Because of drought the dams have not been replenished. Farmers at Menindee who irrigate from the Darling System had their lakes drained for the same reason, recreation, and have lost their permanent plantings of vines and almonds. Tens of thousands of river fish have perished and the nation is hostile about this. The South Australian state government had an enquiry as to why. They had a whipping boy in mind before they started. It was cotton farmers on the Darling who took more than their water allocation but they hadn’t used river water for more than a year.

And it's all for recreation. It’s quite political, it determines how South Australians vote. Food and fibre production doesn’t seem important these days nor do the lives of farmers and those who live in the small irrigation towns supporting farming. The last high flow on the Murray was recent. It has nearly drained the Hume Dam. It was an environmental flow to support duck and frog breeding. There is more to this story and it is disgusting.

Now back to the Lake Victoria story. The night prior to the muster I mentioned previously we stayed in what was once a grand old homestead. This was in the process of being restored by the property owner’s daughter and her husband. Their story intrigued me and here it is. They had a large service station with a diner. The agreement they have with a partner is the interesting story. Partner A would work a fortnight and this was intense and exhausting. A would walk out and partner B would take over control and work for the next fortnight. Etc etc. It is my experience that if one wants to succeed in business one has to be married to it and this working plan provided for that matrimony and would avoid much business partner irritation. It might also save the other marriage, the one with your wife.