The Morawa Salt Lake Floods of (circa) 1971
This is a picture of the floods that came down through Morawa around 1971. At least that is my best estimation of the year. It could have been 1970. Obviously a search on Web to try and find the right date was completely useless.
This shot was taken on the Yalgoo Road, or what was locally more often referred to as the Kadji road.
In this picture the salt lakes are running from right to left, which is from north to south.
This flooding is caused by the lakes coming down through the salt lake chain through the station country to the north east of Morawa. When the lakes ‘come down’ the water mostly ends up in the massive Yarra Yarra lake complex just west of Carnamah.
The following clip from Google Earth shows, to the best of my recollection, where my car was parked and the angle of the photograph.
My father, who had seen a number of these floods during his life in Morawa, told me that it was often the case that very little rain actually falls in Morawa when these floods come down. However, on this occasion I can clearly recall that we did get a good drenching in Morawa as well.
At the time I worked as a clerk at the iron ore mine to the east of Morawa and for about two or three days we were unable to drive out to work due to the roads being washed out or deep water over the roads.
That little car is the first car I ever owned. It went everywhere. It was a two door Ford Escort GT 1.3 litre with a dual throat carburettor and the official name of the colour was ‘hot orange’.