An idealic scene in Western Victoria... trees, dry grass and a small waterhole.
Never Never land is featured in my childhood memories of J. M Barrie’s works as the dwelling place of Peter Pan, Tinker Bell and the Lost Boys... and a half magical bird called the Neverbird... which I don’t as yet have a “tick” in my Moleskin.
It’s also the name of a remote area of the Outback in Barcroft Boake’s poem “Where the Dead Men Lie”.
The Never Never... the outback north of Meekatharra. Mt Augustus is on the horizon. It is the world's biggest rock... two and a half times bigger than Uluru.
Out on the wastes of the Never Never -
That's where the dead men lie!
There where the heat-waves dance forever -
That's where the dead men lie!
Somewhat morbid but moving on...
Never Never also features in “We of the Never Never” which is an autobiographical novel by Jeannie Gunn about the author’s experiences at Elsey Station in the Northern Territory near Mataranka... a little out of the area in question...
Henry Lawson, who has to be Australia’s best poet... wrote about never-never in his poem “The Never-Never Land”
It lies beyond the farming belt,
Wide wastes of scrub and plain,
A blazing desert in the drought,
A lake-land after rain;
To the skyline sweeps the waving grass,
Or whirls the scorching sand-
A phantom land, a mystic realm!
The Never-Never Land.
The flooding rains experienced in Western Victoria in January 2011 at the end of a decade long drought I suspect filled what would have been a very dry and fairly insignificant lakebed where Never Never Road joins the Western Highway at Gerang Gerung west of Horsham in the Wimmera. While Western Victoria is not quite “beyond the farming belt” during the drought it would’ve been thought so by an overflying Neverbird.
Australasian Grebe... always seems to turn up whenever a few drops of rain get together to form a waterhole of some sort.
Driving past there during the last few days (December 2011) this small lake still has water in it albeit getting lower. The drying is evidenced by the hard mud edges to what is now a pond of only about 200 metres long and around 50 metres wide. What made me pull up in a hurry was the honking number of birds concentrated on this pokey little waterhole considering it was such a relatively wee, half pint, teeny-weeny area with little or no reed beds or other apparently supporting habitat.
I counted 270 Eurasian Coot, 170 Grey Teal, 22 Hardhead, 18 Australasian Grebe and 7 Black-winged Stilt... which is oodles of Coots.
The same waterhole... under the magnifying glass is massed with Coots, Grey Teal, Hardhead, Grebes and Black-winged Stilt.
One of the pleasures of observing nature are the multitudes of apparent enigmas in the surprising behaviours and distribution of wildlife. I can only assume that what looked like a fairly ordinary ephemeral waterhole was brimming with prey... and for me... my usual state of discombobulation!
G'day Chris - I am enjoying your blog as usual. I suspect that you were driving to or from a tour to one base or another when you happened upon this pleasant scene.
I am Christmasing in sunny, stormy Truckstop unfortunate as most of my family are in Canberra, nevermind, the story of an itinerant pilot.
Best wishes to you and family.
Rgds Manch
Posted by: Anthony Manchee | December 21, 2011 at 10:25 PM