Lake Hindmarsh

[dplanet]

Recently visited Lake Hindmarsh. It was a quite nice place for camping and bird watching. Pity that the lake is currently bone dry. Below is a few photos from the trip.

[wildlight]

Hey dplanet

I really like xxxb a lot. The dynamic of the birds' interaction, the light… looks good! You could pull a much tighter crop out of that image- and make some interesting compositions. Quite dynamic ones actually. Nice capture!

Cheers

WildLight

[ggorgeman]

Thanks for the post, nice to see how that part of the state is looking. Love the photos..

[dplanet]

Thanks wildlight and ggorgeman. Interested in a return for more walking and hope that Lake Hindmarsh will be filled with water.

[ggorgeman]

I'd love to see water there, I holidayed there once with family when it was full... a LONG time ago! I doubt that we'll see water there again any time soon. Even after the once-in-200-year floods a couple of years ago, only a small flow made it into the lake. Winters just aren't as consistently wet nowadays.
Cheers

[icefest]

Winters just aren't as consistently wet nowadays.

While that may be partly true, I suspect it may have to do more with the great amount of increased storage we have built on the length of the river. The giant dams have completely reversed the typical flow patterns, with the regular spring floods almost disappearing. AFAIR the current highest flows are in autumn, when irrigation water is needed most.

[dplanet]

Wimmera River is not far from it, just south to it.

[ggorgeman]

Yep, the Wimmera River is the primary source of water for Lake Hindmarsh. The lake is effectively the termination of the Wimmera River. Unfortunately, there just aren't the flows that there used to be. BTW the Wimmera River doesn't directly supply irrigation land in the way that the Goulburn or Murray do. Arguably, the recent Wimmera Mallee pipeline should more efficient than the old channel system and potentially take less water out of the system. Hopefully, we'll see Lake Hindmarsh in all its glory at some stage... still a beautiful place though... Cheers