It’s raining today so of course all thoughts in Melbourne are on the current drought. It is the height of bad manners in Australia to complain about receiving rain, and instead everyone says “I hope it’s falling in the [water] catchments.” The experts say we need two straight years of above average rainfall to break the drought because one year will just loosen up the hard, hard soil. Unfortunately, this May has been extremely dry - and May is supposed to be one of the wetter months.
We were in a town called Ballarat a few weeks ago, and decided to ride our bikes around Lake Wendouree, a tourist attraction in town. For you Twin Citians, Lake Wendouree is about the size of Lake Calhoun, and during the 1956 Olympics the rowing and canoeing competitions were held on Wendouree.
But as you can see from the photos above, the lake is completely dry. Those buildings off in the distance? Those are boathouses. It was eerie riding around a lake, seeing signs like “no swimming” and passing rowing clubs, boat launches, fishing piers, and mooring buoys, all sitting on a dusty pan of former lake.
No comments:
Post a Comment