Lying among farmlands, this dam of water is the jewel in the hills. This is a hot inland area, yet here the breeze blows off the water, the trees offer shade, and it seems cooler. Birds own this water; ducks, swans, and water birds of all types glide or skim across its surface. Land-based birds stand at the edges, scooping up water or flying above in the freedom of sky. They behave as if it was built for them, and no one disturbs their ownership of it. Water lilies swarm outwards from the bank, claiming the space as beautiful but unapproachable.
It’s a paradox, this place. It’s human-built yet kept free of humans—of their fishing, boating, and swimming adventures; free of their rubbish, petrol, sunscreen and oils and perfumes; free of their shouting and motors and splashing. They don’t cut through the water, churn it up to swim laps or dive into; they don’t skim across its top on boards or canoes or inflatables; they don’t poke rods and lines into it to pull things out to eat or for sport or sale. It’s been here sixty years and has settled into the landscape as if it evolved by itself. It’s the water catchment for the nearby inland town, but it has the serenity of a lake.
The grounds are maintained like a park: grassed slopes with areas of native trees and brush, picnic tables and toilets. There’s a wide causeway you can walk across from one side to the other that admits it’s a dam, not a natural lake. Across the causeway it’s a little wilder; no picnic tables but still gentle parkland, now with more trees than grassed areas. Looking across the wide water to the far side, there’s bush—no paths or lawns there; the eucalypts come down to the water’s edge, and it’s pristine. The lake invites contemplation of depths: its own or those of its visitors.
It’s surprisingly peaceful. On the weekends carloads of people arrive, families with three generations and elaborate picnics; children’s parties with balloons and games and birthday cakes; barbeques with sausages and blokes with beer, but that’s all contained in a tiny part near the car park. Unlike the beach, people don’t spread out and claim the whole thing, and anyone who comes here for peace and quiet only has to walk away from them or come during the week when the place is practically deserted. There’s a sense of cool distance, of otherness granted by the water, clean and taboo and yet endlessly enticing in this hot climate; it glimmers with secrets and depths that can’t be known except by the birds that sail over it in confident ownership and by the waters themselves.