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If you’re driving between Sydney & Canberra, south of the Southern Highlands and heading for the ranges that surround our purpose-built national capital, the road passes a rather special place called Lake George. Among New South Welshmen & Capital Territorians it has a slightly spooky reputation.
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Most of the dry lakes in the arid areas are salt pans that have water only infrequently. The Eastern coast (& elsewhere?) has quite a few saltwater lakes that open to the sea, and there are a few fairly permanent freshwater lakes and dam-enhanced water bodies, but as everyone repeats, Australia is the driest inhabited continent. (Antarctica is drier because the water is mostly frozen, but despite a few hundred (thousand?) temporary residents, it’s not counted as being permanently inhabited.)
Lake George forms across the wide flat bottom of a valley, but mysteriously fills & dries out of synchrony with rainfall. Placed in a fairly good climate in an arable area, it is part of a couple of grazing properties. Thus it is one of the very few lakes in the world with fences across it. This looks quite odd when the water is there.
Seen dry or wet, in rainstorm or droughtstruck, at noon or dusk, I’ve always found it one of the most beautiful places in Australia, with a very Aussie beauty. Certain works of the artist Rosalie Gascoigne, who lived & worked in this general region, capture some of the mood. It has been bittersweet indeed to see her become wellknown & popular; good that more know her work & it’s more likely to be publicly displayed, bad as the prices zoom, taking them out of personal reach (and, since she’s dead, the higher prices don’t help her).
On our last trip together, in February 2002, Chris & I went to see the ‘Treasures of World Libraries’ exhibition. We knew that I’d be queuing from pre-dawn so took time going down the previous day & finally on a Canberra trip had time to stop near Lake George for me to take photos of it other than from a moving vehicle. This is a panorama showing a small part of the dry grassed-over lake bed with Chris at the official lookout, at the spot where the road curves away to go up over the hills.
As you can see, the clouds & sunlight were doing pretty showy things that afternoon. Eventually, as we reached Canberra, there was a spectacular thunderstorm, sweeping curtains of silvery-grey rain across the city. It was fortunate we had good light when needed here.
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