The creeping lake Oct 3rd

Mind you its only just getting there . The swans think its good Clearly there is some new things growing quite fast on the southern edge of the lake .

Wonderful winter stuff

While there was no significant surface water in the lake when these photos were taken in July 2009, lots of great views were ours as the fogs, mists and sunrises started our days on its unusual dry and black base this winter.(the fairy grass seeds had settled and surface sand (lighter colour) dried enough to blow down into the cracks leaving the dark rich organic calcareous clays exposed.
For those of you who never got out there these deeply shrunken clays formed soft and precariuos pillars ( that were very shaky to walk on ( see next posting for more detail)

The yellow lake turned black is now about to turn green

Fairygrass is uniquely made ( see how the various bits lodge in each crack in January )to take advantage of the time limited opportunity to germinate in the strange wetdry caverns of the drying lake colac surface. The recent rainfall has washed just enough salt out of soil to set grasses going -- so the lake will be green very soon.

What can we do ......realistically?

I love a sunburnt country a land of sweeping plains, of the rugged mountain otways and its ever drying empty plains


Change ( the lake drying out )may be threatening, but it is sometimes stimulating- like having a chance to see lake Colac in a new light. To understand its very thin and precariuos nature.
Lots of people have lots of ideas about how to live better with nature, but all ideas have to fit with its tough, real limits and risks . By recognising these limits ( we hope to do more here ) we can infact make better use of the resources at our doorstep .
WE CAN DO SOME THINGS, BUT OTHERS JUST WON'T WORK lets discuss it here - your questions too !

Bare surfaces The fairy grass may be a fire issue ( news yesterday) but the dust from a bare surface could be expected to create major impact over the next few months , so something other than widespread burning must be considered.

Excavation . Clearly the cost of general deepening is prohibitive ( moving one metre of one hectare to the adjacent hectare - let alone 100 meters away would cost about $20000). Also, wave action , without properly creating low slope floors would soon fill any holes, as it does now .
Planned excavation using the natural principles of lake and beach formation could however create deeper areas , more effective beaches , fish habitat and lake function.
If we were to maintain a water level within much tighter limits, the restablishment of beaches and deeper areas near shore could be considered.
How do we do this at reasonable cost?---
We double the catchment area! and how do we do that ? Create a part of the lake area thats much less than half its present extent- get the govt to build a bypass!!!!

January 16th 2008

Its official, the lake is dry.