Cashbook and Claypan
Share in the tribulations of the admin manager as he balances the books from his Office-in-a-Blitz

Birdsville or Bust
Learn how French know-how and Australian muscle carved the French Line through the Simpson

East From Oodna
Marvel at the initiative of the early pathfinders who solved the mysteries of the Red Centre

Alive in the Dead Heart
Recollections from the crew who first burst the road through Australia's One True Desert

B-line for Birdsville
Join the CGG veterans on their return journeys to the French Line. Take their tip and travel with experts

Trans National Causeway

It better utilises river transportation systems, flood control and national defence readiness and allows for the sale of water surplus as well as the harnessing of electricity from waterpower resources.    The photo at top left shows the German Army in retreat from Holland during WWII, along a causeway.   Using a simple displacement causeway platform they hastily brought up and rearranged and with dredged materials at hand, the Germans recovered massive inventory and manpower, retiring safely and with great speed and so, managed to fight on, a logistical win if not a dastardly retreat in the eyes of the rest of the world.

When but one mighty river runs the result can only be measured in wasted resources.   If harnessed, it could do much good for the refreshment of our eastern inland river systems and the causeway itself will provide constant access by road and rail diagonally across the country, joining up with any north-south streams created in the future.

My credentials for such a project as this come from my experience as administration manager of the bulldozing team that built the French Line across the Simpson Desert in 1963.   The pathway still works without much maintenance.   I like to say whenever I go across that I am a pathfinder, perpetually promoting passages.   I trust I can help to keep the French Line open to all who respect the crossing.

The photo at right shows what happens when rivers go awry.    Scenes much worse than this are commonplace on the western river systems of country NSW.

Engineers building South Australia's old Ghan railway overcame the flooding problems in low-lying areas by building a causeway with regular breaks that allowed floodwaters to proceed naturally, pictured left.

The Pituri and Georgina rise from Mt Hogarth and the Selwyn Ranges, together forming Eyre Creek.   The Hamilton takes other precious water perhaps later, from east of the Selwyns and carries the Georgina on past Bedourie to again find the Eyre Creek at Kalidawarra and all might meet the Diamantina at Goyders Lagoon in SA.    Might meet, because the Diamantina is subject to the force of the 'Gulf monsoonal rains spooning it through the neck above Winton.

Nevertherless, the Diamantina is the most consistent of all the back Queensland waters.    It will always run when the others may not.

Causeways are major means of providing economical all-weather links between two points, as shown in this magnificent structure in Bahrain.    Back home in Queensland, Farrars Creek has the habit of joining the Diamantina impishly from its headwaters from a spur of the 'Divide near Hegemont, as does the Mayne while further east the Thomson and Barcoo, rising definitely from the Great Divide, will chime in up to two months later and rush headlong towards Coopers Creek.

These simple river actions may take place over a four-month period.    Their concurrent flow results in the mighty meet of the Diamantina and Coopers Creek to ensure the filling of Lake Eyre - normally a thirty year cycle.    It is all waste to have a flat plain immersed for a short time in a metre of water.    The Trans National Causeway will carry as much of these waters that engineers seek to divert further south, for the greatest benefit.

A causeway will divert some of the Wilson and Bulloo Rivers, yet the gates on the riverbeds will deliberately allow enough flow through for stations west of that point.   Some diversion from the straight and narrow path is called for to skirt the foothills of the Grey Ranges, otherwise if Sturt was right it is 1° downhill all the way to the Murray.

The causeway will also pick up the meanderings of the Paroo and the Warrego from their headwaters in the Warrego Ranges and carry them both to the causeway junction on the Darling below Tilpa.

Thus we might expect a five-month cycle of regular riverflow being concentrated upon the Darling, which will have the effect of increasing the flow of water through to Wentworth.    Heading due south, the causeway now runs over the same flat country, carrying valuable flow through Ivanhoe, mixing with the Lachlan and then the Murrumbidgee and on to the Murray at Barham, Victoria.

Such a causeway, with locks interspersed at natural watercourses to allow western pastoral access, can carry otherwise wasted water up to 1600km, while some rivers run.   This is surely a more certain source of inland water than we have previously been able to countenance!   And almost year round, considering the natural cycle of the Spring/Summer NSW rivers flowing west of the 'Divide.

Three or four locks could contain the Diamantina when it wants to be 80km wide and a metre deep.   What is left unspilled will travel south along the bank of the causeway, under control and directed where needed.   This proposal expects that the free-flowing bores, the generous dams and the water licences given sometimes in political favours, all along the rivers ought to be reviewed as well as having the purposes looked at more closely, in particular the practices of the wasteful northern NSW cotton farmers who have long enjoyed dream runs at the expense of tax-paying consumers.

How achievable is this causeway?   The Federal Government has completed the rail link from Darwin to Alice Springs.    Tobermory Station is at the end of the Plenty Highway from Alice Springs and can readily meet up with this Federal enterprise.   The Trans National Causeway then connects with Boulia and on to Winton.   At Betoota it links with Windorah.    Nockatunga enables access through Thargomindah to Cunnamulla and a Wanaaring turnoff goes to Bourke or Tibooburra and Tilpa leads to Wilcannia or Cobar ... and so on are the connections made well into southern NSW and Victoria.

Rail running atop the causeway?    Yes, indeed.   Two rail lines, an UP and a DOWN are essential to open up enterprise and carry goods economically in many directions from this cross-country, all-year accessible rail- and road-way.   Cotton farming wastes water six times more than hemp does.   Rice cultivation in a basically dry country?   We must be nuts.   We should leave rice-growing to rice-eating people who have monsoonal rains close by their markets.

A 1600km major gouge by bulldozers 3m deep by 500m wide across flat country will provide a channel and a causeway of the same height that will rival the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric feat for the greater good, as it will spread wasted water to where it is most needed and minimise the flooded, inaccessible wastes while cleansing and keeping alive the lesser-flowing streams we are so dependent upon.   Controlled flow can be maintained into existing dams on the route or bypassed altogether.

The causeway proposal should not be opposed by landowners or lessees on the route.   A one kilometre swathe through most properties would allow the causeway to be fenced off for feral animal control as well as provide a corridor for native animals across a significant half of the countryside.   Allowing $A3m per km construction cost, that's less than $A5bn for the project altogether.