Lake Eyre Holds Water After 60 Years

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 60, 7 November 1949, Page 2

Lake Eyre Holds Water After 60 Years

The few Australians who live near their country’s biggest lake, Eyre, and others*-who have had an opportunity of visiting it, have for some weeks past been gazing at it in wonder —simply because there is an expanse of water there! Only quite old people can remember seeing such a sight, for it is sixty years since it was a real lake. Lake Eyre is 4000 square miles in area and over 100 miles across, but for years people arriving on its “shores” have seen . only a vast stretch of salt arid sand.

During the first three months of this year there were torrential rains in regions west of the lake which turned a district almost as large as England and Wales into a wide sea. Planes had to parachute food to the marooned inhabitants. The water poured through Cooper’s Creek into the dry bed of Lake Eyre. Though the rains were disastrous at first, they will prove a blessing for Australians and, perhaps, for Britain too, for, away from the lake, the water is soaking into great areas of parched land and is causing them to become tracts of grassy verdure. Grass which will grow to a height of several feet will dry in the warm sun and leave thousands of square miles of herbage as nutritious food for cattle. This means that for several years there will be ample food for fattening cattle and grazing sheep.