She has a name, but few people have any idea
What was once a dry creek bed is coming back to life. An inspection of one of the many creeks with their headwaters at Munibung Hill, shows that new eyes, new knowledge, can help a creek that’s as old as the hills – literally.
GAVIN ORD AND ANDREW SLEE take a closer look at an aspect of nature that is often overlooked in favour of the views or what appear to be the more spectacular aspects of Munibung Hill.
Hawkins Creek is located on the southwest. Various tracks criss-cross the creek and walkers are able to appreciate her diverse nature as she flows to Lake Macquarie. While it is often referred as something other than a creek, it meets all the requirements for being described as an Order One waterway within the Strahler stream order classification.
The creek has had a hard life running along side a gravel quarry. You can imagine the run-off after heavy rain. The siltation of the creek bed, the erosion of her banks, the impact on aquatic life that had lived there for thousands of years. Today, for much of her length she has been privatised, flowing through residential properties, some as an open-air water course, some hidden away in pipes. In the section encountered by most walkers, there is no running water for most of the year. They are witnessing a dry creek bed, and dismiss her as being uninteresting.
But this is not the case. She is in reality, at these locations, what is known as an ephemeral waterway – dry most of the time, only running after rain and storms. But this is not the case further downstream, where she is running almost all year round. So, we have much to learn about waterways and their vital roles within healthy landscapes. By the time Hawkins Creek reaches the Lake’s water edge, no one would know that she exists. Without a sign saying Hawkins Creek, all of us driving along The Esplanade are unaware of her presence. “Who cares you could say? What difference would it make?”
In the next issue of Munibung Musings Magazine, Fergus Hancock, President of Munibung Hill Conservation Society, sets out the case for why we should, why we need to, care about creeks: what role they play within the landscape; how it is that we all – every single person on the planet – live in a creek catchment and; what happens when we ignore them and treat them like drains.
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SINCE WATER CONSTITUTES 75 per cent of our body weight, it’s understandable that some people say we are more creek / river than we might care to admit. And so this story resonates with those who believe themselves to be an extension of the very earth beneath their feet, which naturally includes the creek and river.
I am the river, and the river is me – Phil Duncan – Alluvium
https://alluvium.com.au/insights/i-am-the-river-and-the-river-is-me/
… From MMM Issue #47, Dec 24 – Jan 25