What a difference a spot of rain makes.
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Just a month ago a popular dam near Helensburgh was an empty dustbowl with tyre tracks in the dirt and a forlorn looking rope swing hanging uselessly from a tree.
But this week the Wilsons Creek dam is overflowing, returned once more to its status as a beautiful wetland and a local favourite (if unofficial) swimming spot.
“Bit of water about”, remarked one understated local walker, heading the other way as the Mercury negotiated the muddy track downhill.
There’s an understatement. Visitors to the dam this week could see water racing away down the causeway as fast as it arrives from the many streams that feed the dam from the hills all around.
Questions about whether the dam was full are answered before you get within 100m of it, as the sound of rushing creeks takes over.
For it wasn’t just a spot of rain, but more than 150mm that fell on the northern Illawarra in a week-long stretch over the start of March.
There’s something eerie about an empty dam – especially one this big.
It had been so dry for so long that some Helensburgh residents had been worrying whether there might be a cause other than natural evaporation.
They would be breathing a little easier now: the sheer quantity of water which has fallen, flowed, dripped and poured into the dam – in such a short space of time – is simply incredible.
For many long-term residents of the northern Illawarra town, it’s just the cycle of life – when there’s no rain for a few months the dam can dry up. And when the rain comes back it’s filled once more, sustaining life and ready for youngsters to swing into the water again like youngsters do.
This dry period may have been a bit more extreme than most. The creeks leading down to the dam were reduced to hard clay ditches, while the path that leads water away down Wilsons Creek towards the Hacking River was nothing but large, cracked stone.
Then the bed was dust, moisture limited to a single 5m puddle in which a desperately optimistic waterbird was trying to cool off.
But now it’s the bird life leading the celebrations, boisterous and merry and feasting on the flowers which sprung forth after the deluge.
All thanks to the rain – sometimes a danger when extreme, often inconvenient to our plans, but always sustaining. The stuff of life.