Water, Water, Everywhere

Yesterday, April 10th, saw the introduction of Level 5 Water Restrictions in Brisbane, which I suppose indicates the level of anxiety corporate government feels about water consumption and supply.

What it means in practical terms for us is that we can only water the garden from a bucket three evenings a week. In practice we recycle washing-up water for this so we don't waste any water there anyway. It also means that we can't wash the car... unless it's at a car wash. And we can't wash the house... unless we want to paint it. Also "high water users" are to be targetted and fined. I strongly doubt that we would fall into this category with our 40-litre baths and infrequent flushing.

Decidedly not to mark the occasion, but bizarrely topically in a coincidental kind of way, we decided to go for a drive today to the Brisbane Valley where the lakes that supply Brisbane with its drinking water, Wivenhoe and Somerset, are slowly emptying.

We drove across the D'Aguilar Mountains up the Mount Glorious Tourist Drive, and stopped briefly at a the Wivenhoe Lookout, which, as its name suggests, looks out across the mountains to Lake Wivenhoe. Then down into the Valley and a right turn onto the road to Kilcoy.

The landscape on this side of the mountains was quite different. Occasionally we would coo at some cows or horses - it was clearly much more agriculturally orientated. Rolling hills covered in dry grass receded away to mountains, sparsely populated by trees alive and dead. Best described really as "beige."

Not much water. Dried up creeks. The odd little pool. Windmills standing forlorn next to them. No lakes.

We got to the top of the road and drove through Lake Somerset township, we blinked and missed it, then drove down to an area called the Spit which was clearly a spot for watersport. Yes, there was a lake there! And quite a considerable one at that. We could see across to the dam, but really it wasn't very interesting. Eloise had fallen asleep by this point so we didn't loiter. We took note of the line where the trees finished and the line where the water started, and how the latter seemed quite some way below the former.

Further up the road we stopped for a couple of minutes at the top of a hill to take the photo above.

Then we drove further East on the D'Aguilar Highway and back round the other side of the lakes to a town called Esk which our little guide book described as the "Jewel of the Brisbane Valley."

We blinked and missed it.

We lunched on peanut butter sandwiches in a little park and thought it would be rude not to go back and have a look. Our book mentioned a Historical Homestead which served Devonshire Cream Tea so we thought that would be nice. We got there to find it was closed for renovations. Pfff.

We drove back to Brisbane stopping at a couple of places for coffee on the way back. They were closed too. Pfff.

Well you've got to try everything once, haven't you.