Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia 27/10/08 10:27 AM

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Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

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Monday, October 27th, 2008

Time Event
8:53aRottnest Island - Settler's Lake (Lakes Vincent & Baghdad)

The salt lakes of Rottnest look pretty good to humans in October

because they have been recharged by the winter rains. A layer of 'clear'
brackish water sits atop the ancient hypersaline layer and facilitates
favourable conditions for a variety of invertebrates. This is good for the
birds. As summer proceeds, evaporation lowers the level and the
hypersalinity becomes more apparent. Species best adapted to what is
always a harsh environment survive and flourish.

So in my panorama photos in this series the edges of the lakes are

deceptively clear, but they are still too brackish for humans to drink.
Today I've put up a panorama of the southwest corner of Lake Vincent.
It's taken from where the island's first settlers, the Thomson family
optimistically established a small 200 acre farm in the 1830s. The
panorama shows the view that they would have seen every day of the
eight years that they struggled against the odds to make a living.

The panorama also shows that the winter rains have made Lake Vincent
and Lake Baghdad in the distance a single body of water. The singular
identity of the lakes can be seen in the accompanying Google Earth
satellite image. In the Thomsons' time the combined waters were
named Settler's Lake. Vincent was the name of the government jailer
who took over the Rottnest in 1839. The Thomsons and their twelve
children were evicted from the island and it became a notorious
Aboriginal prison.

The photo below shows a cluster of trees by the area the Thomsons
occupied. It was taken on 2 October 2008.

The beachline in the foreground of the photo has a heavy layer of fossil
shells. In the past similar deposits were exploited on the island for
making cement. Between the trees and the beachline is a trench where
shell may have been removed for burning. Amongst these trees are a
few timber remains of at least two small buildings and some equally
small cemented floors. If these are remnants of the Thompson's efforts
they are amongst the oldest architectural timber and cement remains in
the state. They're almost invisible beneath a thick entanglement of
fallen branches from the trees. They'll certainly be destroyed if there is
a bushfire.

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Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia 27/10/08 10:27 AM

Immediately adjacent to one of the structures was an intriguing

concentration of butchered bones of domestic animals. Someone
enjoyed a T-bone stake or two in the past, but close scrutiny reveals
other bone butchering methods were practised which you don't see
today. Some of the rib bones have been sawn horizontally. I suspect
this was to maximise the extraction of nourishment for soups. Only
after that process were they discarded. Perhaps the collection is
evidence that adjacent small structure was a farm kitchen? There's
never an archaeologist around when you need one.

I also saw a less concentrated scattering of similar bones near a large

tree about fifty metres further away from the lake.

There's apparently an original well in the immediate area but I didn't

see it. However I did see another well several hundred metres to the
south east.

© MMVIII Paul R. Weaver.

Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website.

Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio

website or my Picasa site. Most of them have a brief description
and a link back to a relevant essay. Images on Panoramio can usually
be enlarged several times by clicking them.

About the writer

Click here to see our backyard.

Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my
"common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia –
plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days
as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words.
Zzzzzzzz!

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Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia 27/10/08 10:27 AM

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