River beds

According to Wikipedia, a river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river.

Good old Wikipedia!

Except that sometimes things aren't what they seem, and it's a good reminder why you should always check your information against local knowledge.

The temptation when seeing the word River on a map - which you see with remarkable regularity when looking at maps of inland Australia, is to assume there will be water in them. After all isn't that why the word river is used in the name of this particular feature?

You've possibly even thought about a spot of fishing and surreptitiously tucked into your gear a compact, secret rod, reel and lures.

Ha!

Your visions of a delightful dip in a welcoming, fresh, cool and incredibly inviting river will be sadly shattered. Thoughts of gurgling pleasantness, a place to sluice off the inevitable outback sweat, dust and prickles, somewhere to soothe your flaking, dry, chapped skin are pointless.

That word river is a trap for the unwary - and heaven help you if there is a deluge somewhere upstream and you've taken it into your naive head to pitch your tent or park your car or van in the river bed. Foolish, foolish people.

Before you camp, look up. Often high above your head will be solid evidence of the power of a previous deluge, limbs waiting to tumble. Tangles of fences, bushes and bones. Whole large tree trunks, complete with intricate root systems have been swept many metres before they get caught and stuck fast. Photos of cars and  caravans in similar positions of repose adorn the walls of various tourist destinations in the outback as a warning of what NOT to do. As they say, a picture tells a thousand words.

What you don't see in my photo is the sheer size of the horizontal tree. A 6'+ tall person could easily stroll under the resting trunk, and would have to leap energetically to touch the underside of the hefty trunk...

No doubt dislodging irritated ants and shedding bark onto an upturned face...

The sensible leaper would have checked for snoozing snakes and grumpy goannas before leaping of course!

Flood damage can be significant, with roads, causeways, crops and livestock being washed away. Sometimes the considerable expense in replacing them is considered too much and some infrastructure is simply not replaced. The flat white things in the photo below are massive slabs of concrete (?) and were part of the road and causeway near Silverton NSW washed away in the 2011 floods.

As a means of navigation, mentioned as another feature of rivers in Wikipedia - that's perfectly feasible - just follow the depressions and trees growing in the watercourses. The green of the leaves on whatever trees are growing tends to be quite obvious amongst the surrounding dust and rocks.

Below are almost vertical rocks, laid horizontal eons ago at the bottom of a forgotten seabed, then over the intervening hundreds of thousands of years forced by pressure deep in the earth to their current dry position to become a shaley river bed.

... and then of course, are the occasional treasures, beautiful pools, unbelievably cold, restful, welcome. The source of life for animals (unfortunately including ferral goats) for kilometres around.

Most photos taken in the Northern Flinders Ranges.

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