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Australia’s Catastrophic Rains Herald Future Bounty
Australian
Koala
Foundation
A.C.N. 010 922 102
In the days before January 9, I was out in my paddocks planting bottlebrush, wattle, and of
course some bush tucker: finger limes, a sweet and delicious native fruit that has existed on our
continent for more than 20,000 years. It tastes as sweet as marmalade but looks like a chili. The
soil was gooey and workable between my fingers, not rock hard as it was during the terrible
drought days. It was wonderful to be out there like a child playing mud pies.
“Out there” is Illawarra, my five-acre paradise a few miles west of Brisbane. I moved here with
my young family in 1984, four years before I joined the Australian Koala Foundation. Illawarra
(named after the Australian flame tree) and I were born in the same year: 1951. It has a
rambling country house with lots of bedrooms for people to stay, where, like it or not, animals–
both native and domestic–have rule of law.
After January 9 unprecedented rains fell. I’ve always loved thunderstorms, but now the sky was
a weird green colour, and the lightening flickering eerily across the landscape felt like an omen.
By January 12 Wivenhoe Dam, which was built after the disastrous 1974 flood and intended to
protect us from another big one (and supply water to Brisbane), had swelled to the point where
huge amounts of water had to be released. Once that happened, and with the continued intense
rain, a torrent of water and mud swept down the valley and flooded two cities: Brisbane and
Ipswich. Ipswich is about five miles from Illawarra as the crow flies.
An old boy in his 90s measure floods by how high up his front steps the water comes. “Well,” he
said, “it came to the first step in 1951, the second step in 1983, the third step in 1994, and now
it looks like it’s going to the fifth.” Queensland houses used to be designed for floods, but new
ones built by dodgy developers don’t even have steps.
As remarkable as the amount of water is all the mud that’s come with it. I’m pretty sure that’s
because we’ve cleared so many trees in Queensland. The saturated topsoil washes into the
sea, where it smothers our beautiful reefs and threatens sea life. In this case, the dugongs of
Moreton Bay may lose their sea grass. (Then again, I heard a fisherman say that injections of
fresh water are essential for fish stocks, so in the coming years these floods may make the
ocean more productive.)
So far, Illawarra has come through unscathed, and by and large I do not feel guilty about that.
When I first arrived, the ground was so bare that my children could play golf in the paddocks,
and we needed a pick axe to dig the smallest hole for our plantings. The land was in shocking
condition after endless years of abuse from sheep grazing and then lawn mowing. Australia’s
beauty is rugged, not manicured lawns and pretty flowers.
I’ve shocked my neighbours by returning my “beautiful” lawns to messy, leaf-strewn
landscapes. Sometimes even I feel overwhelmed when I see the “mess” I’ve created. Illawarra
is now a permaculture garden, a mixture of native and exotic species that produce a sustainable
harvest for me and food for wildlife. I’ve put in hundreds of trees, 961 to be exact, ranging from
gum trees to star fruits, oranges, lemons, macadamias, and the famous Queensland fruit trees.
They all soak up water–and carbon. I’ve established countless water collection points, which
feed into six water tanks. Plumbers find my obsession with water collection somewhat eccentric,
but watching the tanks fill up with 50,000 gallons of precious water during the drought made me
smile.
Deluge after deluge, these rains have replenished the water table. Illawarra is bursting with life
and growth. The trees are slurping up the water (I can almost hear them), and I could swear
that some have already doubled in size. With its native fruit trees, Illawarra is a haven for all
Public Relations, Ph: 07 3229 7233
Email: akf@savethekoala.com
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manner of creatures: bats, sugar gliders, and a hundred species of birds. And of course, the
annoying mosquitoes and sand flies that find their way under my mosquito net at night.
Australian
Koala
Foundation
A.C.N. 010 922 102
Many Australian animals need trees with hollows in them. But these can take up to 300 years to
form, so while I wait, I’ve put out hollow logs. Each year I watch as different species of
marsupials or birds fight over who will occupy them. Ringtail possums normally build bowers in
trees, but for some reason during these drenching days, one ringtail has taken the
unconventional step of encroaching on a hollow used by a “brushy.” You have to giggle when at
around 4 a.m. you hear two tiny little nocturnal animals fighting it out, then sprinting across the
tin roof in a race to the hollow. They sound as if they’re wearing hobnail boots.
To my delight during a break in the rain, I found 16 butterfly caterpillars on a single citrus tree
waiting to go into their cocoons. Soon Illawarra will be awash in butterflies–blue ones, white
ones, yellow ones, red ones–whose names I don’t yet know. Some will fly in and out of the
house–the doors are always open. As I write, the kookaburras, sulphur-crested cockatoos,
galahs, magpies, rosellas, and king parrots are trilling away, a chorus punctuated by the
screeches of cockatoos, often called the bushman’s alarm clock.
I’m extraordinarily lucky that Illawarra hasn’t been in the path of a crushing wall of water, like
other places in Queensland. Humans have suffered terribly, and the word catastrophe is apt.
Families are torn by grief. Coal mines are full of water, industrial railways ruined, cotton crops
destroyed. The toll on domestic animals–particularly horses, cows, and sheep–has been
grievous too.
The creatures I live with are thriving. Although I’ve seen pictures of fleeing possums, kangaroos
(some in rowboats), and snakes, I’ve heard surprisingly little about the koalas. I have a feeling
they’re doing quite well in their lofty tree houses. One supporter sent this note: “We are on
Redbank Creek, which on Monday burst its banks and swallowed up large trees and sandstone
boulders the size of small cars before flooding the township. We have made it home to our
property today to find 3 koalas snuggly sitting in trees within 150m of each other. It was
reassuring to see them.”
We had another huge thunderstorm over Illawarra last night, and I lay in bed waiting for a tree
that had been hit by lightning to fall on my bedroom. I feel a little overwhelmed at the enormity
of it all. I am not unscathed emotionally, but as I look out the window at my beautiful piece of the
world, I understand that all this water is essential for the future of this amazing country of ours. I
hope that as we listen to the pounding rains, we hear the message this ancient land is giving:
We must learn to live in harmony with nature.
As the water subsides, there will be beauty again.
Public Relations, Ph: 07 3229 7233
Email: akf@savethekoala.com