Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

Lying on the north-eastern margin of the Nullarbor Plain, the Ooldea Range and Barton Ranges are coastal dune ridges that mark the edge of the sea during the Eocene. The Ooldea Range is a sand range, 650 km long, standing out from the flatness of the Nullarbor Plain, 25-300 km from the present coast. Ooldea was the site of a soak where Aboriginal People from the surrounding area obtained water. When the railway came through the soak was taken over by the newcomers, bores being put down, so that the only water available to the Aboriginal People was then from a tap. Eventually the bore pierces the impervious blue clay that had kept the water fresh, allowing salty water from below to contaminate the water supply. Only 1 part of the soak then remained fresh, the remainder of the soak being brackish.

Sources & Further reading

1. Mary E White, After the Greening, The Browning of Australia, Kangaroo Press, 1994