I've been waiting for this moment for years. It's finally time to recreate an intrepid journalist's 19th-century circumnavigation of Lake George. First, we're heading up Deep Creek.
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00:00In 1892, two intrepid adventurers
00:05circumnavigated Lake George and documented it in the Town and Country Journal.
00:11As part of that voyage, they ventured around a mile
00:15upstream in Buttmeroo Creek, also called Deep Creek, which flows into the lake over there on its eastern side.
00:23Recently, on an unseasonably foggy summer's morning, I teamed up with Bruce White, who lives near the lake and has a small flat-bottomed punt, to find out, 133 years on, just how far up Deep Creek we could get.
00:44The biggest challenge was actually finding the mouth of the creek in the thick fog,
00:49but once we found it, we were both surprised by the amount of birdlife and lush vegetation.
00:56But was it still navigable?
01:03So we've read all these reports over the years from the 1890s that parties came up here and explored Deep Creek on the eastern side of Lake George.
01:12I didn't think it was navigable, but it appears as if it is.
01:15The depth sound is saying it's 1.5, 1.8 metres directly beneath where we are now.
01:20There's fish, there's redfin beneath us.
01:22Who'd have thought that on the far side of Lake George, there's a navigable creek, Deep Creek.
01:29We were so taken by the landscape that a couple of days later, Bruce and I returned on a much sunnier morning to explore even more of this little-known waterway.
01:40Joining us on this second voyage was Bruce's neighbour, Scott.
01:46So Bruce, we've made it as far as we can up Deep Creek.
01:51How far do you think we've come?
01:53In the old measurements, I'd say about a mile.
01:55A mile. So we've come a mile, just as far as the explorers in 1892 did for their newspaper article back then.
02:03Yeah, we did it a bit easier than them, because we had a motor, they had a row.
02:07But the reeds are just too thick from here on.
02:10What sort of birds have we seen?
02:13We've seen a lot more birdlife and fish than we've ever seen before.
02:19We've seen a lot more birdlife and fish than I expected.
02:24What have we seen, Scotty?
02:26We've seen some swans to start with, there's obviously pelicans and seagulls.
02:32We saw some sparrows jumping out of the bushes.
02:34Lots of ducks. Lots of ducks.
02:36Lots of swallows. Yeah.
02:38And Bruce, you think there's a few golden perch up here?
02:41Oh, the water is absolutely teeming with fish.
02:44Absolutely teeming. You're seeing them jump, fingerlings all along the edge of the water.
02:50It's alive with fish.
02:52It's been quite a few years since 1892, but do you feel a little bit like an expeditioner coming up here?
02:58Not many people come up Deep Creek off Lake George and explore it at all.
03:03I doubt anyone has in a very long time.
03:06No.
03:07Wouldn't be many boats.
03:09A few quad bikes when it's dry.
03:11Yeah?
03:13That's true.
03:14No, no.
03:15We're probably the only ones this time since the lake's been full.
03:21Yeah, so for the last five years or something, probably the only ones?
03:24Yeah.
03:25Yeah?
03:26Yeah, for sure.
03:27Which is sad, as a fishing resource, it's extraordinary.
03:30Yeah.
03:31But just, yeah, access is so problematic.
03:34Yeah.
03:36So this is one of, what, five or six creeks that flow into Lake George and help fill it during wet years,
03:45but when it starts getting dry, I imagine this creek will stop flowing completely, is that right?
03:51Or does it flow even in dry years?
03:54It maintains a bit of a trickle in dry years.
03:57There's actually a, the, who are they?
04:03The DPI?
04:04Yeah.
04:05Oh, one of, part of the DPI water in New South Wales have a monitoring station on Deep Creek up on the Federal Highway.
04:12And it always shows there's always about a metre of water.
04:17How far that penetrates into the lake, I'd say not real far.