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Ezra Michael: I never heard it. No. He used to ring to Koolatah, Norman [Hudson, then
manager of Oriners]. Just from Oriners, that‟s all. I was minding my own business - did not
want to tell Norman Hudson what to do. Just keep quiet. He let Cecil Hughes know, that all
was all ok, [that] we got plenty of rain.
Marcus Barber: So when the water was up high, was it moving, was it flowing?
Ezra Michael: Coming up to after the wet, around about, second week of March, then the
water went down.
Marcus Barber: But right in the middle of the wet, was the water moving?
Ezra Michael: The water was running, from the waterhole, the water was running. It was on
the land, because there was a lot of water you know?
Marcus Barber: And if you looked down at the water [from the elevated sleeping platform
inside the shed], was that moving or sitting still?
Ezra Michael: Still sitting there. It wasn‟t flowing. Only time it started flowing was coming
into March.
Figure 18. Oriners homestead area in flood ©KALNMRO
Cecil Hughes recalled a later flood the one Ezra experienced, but in this case the duration
was far shorter:
We had a couple, when I say a couple, we had quite a few floods out there [at Oriners] in
those days. I just don‟t know what years it was, I can‟t remember. ‟74 would have been one
for sure, because everybody got flooded out in „74. I think the water went through the hut
we had there about 3 foot deep in „74. That was a ground level hut. I wasn‟t living there but
we had a bloke out there. I think he said he got up on the table in the kitchen or something.
He survived anyhow. It came up and down in a day.
Cecil Hughes
Working Knowledge at Oriners Station, Cape York
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