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

waterholes on Koolatah Station dry out during the mid-1960s, but at that time the big
waterholes on the Alice remained, as did flow in the Mitchell. Colin Hughes confirmed that he
did not see groundwater as a major source of permanent water at Oriners:
Colin Hughes: There are just a lot of swamps and that there. And there‟s a fair bit of water,
like permanent water on Oriners, especially up the two rivers, the Crosbie and the Alice
down the bottom. A lot of them big swamps, most years they hold water right through.
Marcus Barber: Are they groundwater fed? Are they getting recharged from underneath?
Colin Hughes: No. They just, the wet season, that fills them up there. The only ones that I
could say on Oriners that could be spring fed is the waterholes I was talking about right
down the western end close to Crocodile. They are just crystal clear, and it doesn‟t matter
what time of year, the water level doesn‟t seem to change in them. Whether they are spring
fed or not I don‟t know, but there are some big mud springs not far back up that one big
watercourse, not far from Crocodile. [There is a] big mound of mud coming up with a crust
on it and when you break that off, it just starts oozing back out again. Someone told me
they took samples of it and people use that stuff, ochre or something, for makeup and stuff.
It‟s rich in minerals.
Marcus Barber: So the big ones - Horseshoe, Mosquito - from your point of view they are
probably not groundwater fed. Do they seem to change much over the dry season? Do
they drop back?
Colin Hughes: Yeah, yeah. They never go dry though. Oh actually, Mosquito I‟ve seen
nearly dry. Even Jewfish, I‟ve seen it pretty close to being dry. That would have been, back
in the 80s. This is what I‟ve got in my head. I come down here [Highbury] around ‟88, so it
would have been somewhere between ‟85 and ‟88. I‟m just guessing here…
Marcus Barber: So you‟ve seen them nearly dry. What about Oriners itself, the one next to
the station?
Colin Hughes: I‟ve seen it really low but never dry. You could still drink it and that, but it
was pretty stagnant looking. It‟s not real deep, be lucky to be 3 metres deep.
Marcus Barber: And from your perspective it‟s not groundwater fed because you can see it
going down.
Colin Hughes: Yeah, the only two waterholes I reckon could be spring fed are the two right
down the western end near Crocodile and I just can‟t think of the name of the other little
waterhole, straight across from what we used to call Koolatah Murray‟s yard…Divers? Old
Simpson Yam, he should know where that is. Or Paddy Yam.
Philip Yam and Louie Native reported a story told to them by the old people about the depth
and associated power of the Oriners waterhole:
Marcus Barber: Is the lagoon level the same. Is that rock still there the same?
Philip Yam: It‟s got a drop there, a deep spot. But that waterhole will go right down low eh?
You can almost walk across it. You can see all the rock there, right across the waterhole.
Go very low.
Marcus Barber: Did you ever see it with nothing?
Philip Yam: No. It still have water there, until the rain will get to it.
Louie Native: But you never know, one…
Philip Yam: One, I reckon one year it might get dry.
Louie Native: One year it might get dry.
Philip Yam: It‟s pretty low now.
Working Knowledge at Oriners Station, Cape York
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