Abstract:
Brewarrina is a small country town on the banks of the Barwon river, which
meanders through curving bends and billabongs as it moves slowly across
the wide floodplain of western New South Wales until it joins the mighty
Darling. The river runs steadily in this winding course most of the time, but
when floods come down from the east, the waters rise to a torrent that cuts
a line across the bends, straightening the course of the river, at least until the
flood subsides.
The whole Darling system forms one of the longest rivers in the world, a
fact often quoted to emphasise its iconic "natural" status. Just as iconic is the
Darling's landscape with its beautiful old river gums, slow tranquil flows and
the broad grasslands beyond. White settlers from 1830s believed these open,
sunlit floodplains were there in the form that their God had created them.
Instead the grasslands were the result of centuries of Indigenous people's
management with strategies like regular burning. Yet even when its human
creation is acknowledged, the calm of these riverbank scenes seems very far
from the intrusive tin and concrete structures built by European setters from
the mid nineteenth century to stake their claim on the land.
