The Water Tree of Doubtful Creek

 A longing that never abates that amounts to a kind of love. Just like a tree searching into the earth for water. The desert rivers and creeks may only flow for short periods of time after rain but there’s usually a depth of water beneath the sand. The rains that fall here can become underground reservoirs, artesian basins, subterranean creeks and rivers. These stored waters  are commonly hundreds of thousands of years old (in Australia the artesian water is over a 1.1 million years old). Ancient life sources that when flooded reappear on the surface of the desert bringing up buried secrets. Plant life is most abundant in this habitat, with permanent pools or waterholes being the most biologically significant places. If there is a tree or remnant tree or even microscopic plants in a seemingly harsh and barren desert environment it is a sentinel of hope, a sign of water. 

Natural springs, soaks and pools (claypans, wadis, billabongs, swamps) are the surface manifestation of the artesian basin. Water seeps to the surface through fractures and vents in the land. The oldest springs are Pleistocene (Ice Age). There are many plant and animal species endemic to  these desert springs with a large number of rare or relic species, micro fauna, small fish, gastropods (molluscs, snails) and some species restricted to single springs. Indigenous people traversed the desert using their knowledge of these soaks and springs as their water source and routes. The camel trains of Africa, Arabia and European exploration also followed the springs and since settlement, many bores have been sunk, resulting in reduced aquifer pressure and many extinctions).

Many animals as well as plants dig down deep under the sand in times of drought. Life in these places comprise long periods of suspended animation followed by bursts of accelerated growth and activity. There are seeds and eggs that can survive hundreds and thousands of years in the dry sands or baked mud until the next rains fill the waterholes and creeks again. Waterholes, even subterranean soaks and sinks are the essential life source of the desert. Indigenous people have a long history of caretaking these places, long acknowledging their sacred significance. We must value land as sacred and not see it merely as an interminable  resource. We also need to value the times of stasis and torpor, (the bust or drought seasons of suspended animation) as the refuges of peace and solitude that deserts offer.