THE TODD RIVER - Alice Springs NT
~ The Todd river is a dry river bed...it is huge. It only floods rarely when it rains for weeks. ~
There is a saying here that goes; "If you see the Todd River flood three times you will never leave." It just so happens that when dad and I drove into the NT we seemed to bring the rain with us. A couple of days after we arrived it started pouring and it didn't stop much for a week and a half.
Todd River Flooded 19th of October 2005. The road gets closed off when it floods, this was midday when the sun had just dried up enough water for people to drive through it. The water level was right up the night beforehand.
I came across a bunch of Aboriginal women relaxing on the grass watching their kids play. I said G'day and we got chatting, they told me they hadn't seen such rain for over 5 years.
I had fun playing in the river collecting stones with their kids. The kids loved the camera and wanted me to take photo's, then look at them.
These are the kids I collected stones with (brother and sister). They were great to be around. They were from a camp (Many of the Aboriginal people around here live in camps, where they live in the bush on the outskirts of town...or some very far out of town...sometimes 200k)and had come to do their shopping at Bi-Lo and have a swim. They encouraged me to take my two favourite stones home...and I did.