Short History of a River Cooper Creek Part One

The first of two programs that explore the cultural history of rivers and irrigation in Australia. Rivers, irrigation, farming and the environment have not had an easy relationship for much of the period of European settlement. From the myth of the Inland Sea to the highly scientific approach to large-scale irrigation, rivers have offered the answer to our dreams of prosperity and development. But what rivers we have. Often dry, sometimes flooding extensively, they defy European desire for order and regularity. Since settlement Australians have wanted to alter not just the course of rivers but in so doing, fight against the very climate itself. There is one last major 'wild', river in eastern Australia, and it is named not a river but a creek. The 1,300 kilometres of the lazily winding Coopers Creek starts with the Thomson River up near Hughenden in North Western Queensland, and ends at Lake Eyre in South Australia. Aboriginal Australians used it as a livelihood and trading route. And it was where the explorers Burke and Wills starved to death amongst its bountiful plenty, and where the cattle kings lived out their dreams on the backs of the fattest cattle in the world. The Cooper flows through lands so flat that if not the Creek itself, its mate, the Strezlecki, will flow backwards. Like all the rivers that flow to Lake Eyre, the Cooper does not take a particular path but moves crabways across the land according to the amount of water it holds. The Cooper is also significant because it is the last river not to have its flow heavily modified by water harvesting or irrigation. So it is along the Cooper, with its myths and histories, old and new that we meander in these two programs, exploring the hold water has on our bodies and our souls.