THIS month, what other topic than the Rockhampton floods. A perennial issue really – one that’s been in my mind since that last day of 1969, when we arrived in this fair city.
You don’t remember a great deal at six years old, but aside from finding the odd shilling, a key memory is dad looking for a house that would not get flooded. We ended atop Frenchville Hill, in a modest but architect designed house paid for in cash, complete with dead roses in the backyard.
The hill and the dead roses provide a window into the history of our river. Coming from Sydney, dad must have been sufficiently aware of the floods to seek “higher ground”, and the roses were dead, because in 1969 the city was in the depths of drought, and the barrage had not yet been built. As summer’s blooming Poincianas still attest, the barrage in one fell swoop turned Rockhampton from a dust bowl into something of a tropical oasis. The flood issue continues however, to resurface, time and time again
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