WfHC - cover page (not to be used with pre-printed report ... - CSIRO

Marcus Barber: So every time you were there, that water came up over the bank and filled
the shed?
Edwin David: Yeah. Just up over the verandah.
Marcus Barber: How high? Like if I was standing up?
Edwin David: Oh, about as high as your chest [gestures to stomach]. We used to do a lot of
fishing from upstairs - we had no boat. We used to bring horse back to Koolatah too. We
used to bring horses back there, put them up on the high ground. Because there‟s a lot of
cattle and horse been die away from there [die from starvation].
The level of the floods around the homestead is consistent at a maximum of 3-4 feet, with
this observation made by a wide range of people over a number of decades. The comments
below show that it can also fall back and then recur multiple times.
Marcus Barber: The flood come up for about a week, then it went down again, and did it
come up a second time?
Ezra Michael: Come up again, yeah, second time. During the big wet in February and
March.
Marcus Barber: Did it come up third time?
Ezra Michael: yes, it come up third time.
Marcus Barber: How many times did it come up, you reckon?
Ezra Michael: Oho! Maybe five or six times!
Marcus Barber: When it come up, was raining at Oriners, on the shed and station area or
just up in Dixie?
Ezra Michael: No, it was raining on Oriners too. Raining everywhere all around Oriners. Big
monsoon.
Marcus Barber: And what was it [the Oriners wet season] like?
Philip Yam: Well, the river was full! The flood flowed right to the front of that house, where
the big gum tree is standing there now. Right through there, that other shed almost go
under water.
Marcus Barber: Was that for a long time?
Philip Yam: It only stay up for 3 days, then it will be all gone, back to normal.
Marcus Barber: Did it come back up a second time?
Philip Yam: Yes, it will come back up again when you get a bigger rain up Dixie [Station]
way.
Marcus Barber: So that first year, can you remember, did it do it 2 or 3 times, or…?
Philip Yam: Couple of times.
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Marcus Barber: So you‟ll get 3 or 4 days [of flood] once in a year, or it might go back up to
that multiple times?
Colin Hughes: Could do. Could well do. It‟s pretty slow running all the drainage system out
there, that‟s why it takes a long time to peak and a fair while to go away.…[There are] only
shallow drainage lines, so it makes most of them are slow, very slow flowing water. There‟s
not too many fences that ever get knocked down. There weren‟t a lot of fences, we
probably only had the two paddocks, one paddock east of the house there, what we used
to call the bull paddock, and another one, another two paddocks below the house. [After a
Working Knowledge at Oriners Station, Cape York
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