heading south

And before you all go and get all excited Amy and Di, this isn't south interstate, just a few hours south of home. Not even anywhere near THIS place.

After that full on weekend, and going to town on both Monday AND Tuesday afternoons for meetings, Wednesday The Husband decreed we were going on a jaunt. To the south, looking at a paddock to agist (which is a bushie term for what is basically renting). One of the perils of building a business (in this instance our grazing/cattle business) is that when you breed cattle, sooner or later you will need more space for them all. And agisting (or renting) is an alternative when you can't afford to buy more land on which to run your cattle.

We drove around 2 and a half hours to the south, into the area of flowing bores and the Great Artesian Basin. If you follow the links you will find some fascinating information, but in my layman's terms, a flowing bore happens when when a hole is drilled to tap into underground water supplies and the water flows up and out of this hole without any assistance. Where we live the water needs to be pumped up by mechanical means, but on the property we went to visit, the water flows. And when it flows it needs somewhere to go, so narrow drains are dug, down which the water flows. It is terribly interesting (for me anyhow)  as you can't just stick in a drain any old where and so drains are carefully placed so they traverse the terrain to obtain the optimum flow levels.

These days, the government is assisting in the capping of these free flowing bores, and the installation of reticulated pipe work around properties, which has many environmental benefits (you can read more HERE).

I didn't take any photos when we driving around, looking at the paddock with the property owner, in case she thought I was a dill. But after we left, I made the Husband pull over so I could take some photos.

That, dear friends, is a bore drain. One flowing bore might have several drains leading away from it, each covering many kilometres as they wind around the contours of the land, and providing livestock with easy access to water.

This drain is rather wide, as its not far from the bore head (and therefore quite some stream of water). But as it gets further away, a bore drain is normally not more than 30cms wide and 30cm's deep. 

At this point the Husband threatened to leave me there on the side of the road if I didn't stop mucking about. So we continued on our way home, but not before we got a flat tyre, aways up the road.

Seeing as husband and boy child had their male bonding thang happening, and clearly my expert assistance was not required, I played.

This photo is very misleading in indicating my leg length. Tis very depressing.

Boy joined in.

And The Husband said he would leave us BOTH behind if we didn't hurry up and get back into the car. And seeing as we were about 150kms shy of home, and I didn't fancy walking, we did.

So ended our day out into bore drain country. For the record, I don't think we'll be sending our cows down to the property we visited, but stay tuned. I am certain that The Husband is planning some more outings soon.