West McDonnell Ranges

View from my travelling window Finke River Two Mile

We found a magical place beside the river overlooking the Ranges.  The river is lined with patches of deep green reeds and there are sparse river eucalypts making homes for heron, cockatoo and eagles. It's coarse river sand and it's not red! Our red kayak gets it's first run as the kids try to paddle in tandem or balance standing up.  It's amazing to stay still a few days. 

I've been thinking about water in this place.  The idea that water is life. It's visible. Practising conserving water and power while we're off grid gives a sense of how precious it is.  I've grown up surrounded by an abundance of water and an awareness of this is only theoretical until spending time in desert.  We catch it in a bucket and reuse. Rinsing cloths uses more water than we can spare. And so we develop a new standard of 'clean'. 

Perhaps first peoples understood best how to use it carefully and share it in a time when land too was shared.

Ormiston Gorge is imposing and still. The low water is lined with decomposing fish.  The few that survive wallow sluggishly. Even here where water can be retained,  it is insufficient for life.  I'm hoping it's about cycles of boom and bust not chemical sunscreens washed off countless bodies.