The Emily Jane

The paddle steamers could only run about 8 months of the year - the Darling depended on the unpredictable rainfall in Queensland. Consequently the Darling was either in flood or drought. The Arial steamed up the Darling in a flood in 1870 - water went down and she was left high and dry - miles away from the actual river. One steamer was found some 60 miles away from the river when flood waters receded. During drought years on the River Murray it was possible to walk across the river, this being impossible when the lock and weir systems were installed.

Culgoa River

The Culgoa River near the Queensland–New South Wales border, reduced to a chain of waterholes during a drought. Photo: David Eastburn, MDBC

Low River flows at the junction

The low river seasons brought great hardship to the settlers at the far distant outpost of New South Wales. The editor of the local paper wrote, when steamers had not been forthcoming for many months, “Oh for an onion to have with my chop!” Even the transport by bullock teams was denied during the years of drought, for there was no feed for the animals-or water-on their routes between one township and the next.

The high rivers also brought anguish to the settlers, with the homes on the low-lying areas inundated by the great floods of 1870 and 1890. Homes were abandoned and the inhabitants took to the sand hills just out of the town, known as the Perry Sand hills, and camped there until the floods subsided.

Hume weir

Hume weir

More images can be viewed here

Beach erosion

Mildura

Heatwave 6 JAN 1906 Mildura, NSW - 124 F

The changing Arctic

Washington Post Nov 1922

The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.

Dry Murray