Posted on November 16, 2023
The collection of tree trunks in the canopy looked like a gigantic nest, as if an enormous, winged creature had set up camp in the melaleuca forest ten metres above us. But no bird, not even a dragon, could have deposited this level of debris in the treetops.
This was the handiwork of the flood waters of Martuwarra, the Fitzroy River catchment, which swelled in January to form the largest floods ever recorded in Western Australia.
Even here, at the headwaters of the watershed, the flooding was almost beyond belief – contemplating the power of the water made you wonder what it looked like further downstream, where literally billions of litres of water rushed in the weeks following New Year’s Day.
