Wild Australia: the mighty red gums of the “Barmah Choke”

THE forest that inspired our greatest poets and artists – and a few bushrangers too.

WHEN the high country snow melts and mixes with spring rains, the rush of water is too great to squeeze through the “Barmah Choke” – where the Murray River pinches to its narrowest point between Albury and the sea.

Periodically, the water spills across a 25km-wide floodplain that sustains a vast river red gum forest. The gnarled branches and hollow trunks of the Barmah-Millewa Forest once gave cover to bushrangers such as Ned Kelly and have inspired generations of Australia’s greatest artists and poets. Weakened by drought and rejuvenated by flooding, the red gum forest beats to the rhythm of Dorothea Mackellar’s masterwork, My Country.

This beautiful landscape is made richer by the extraordinary upheaval that shaped it: 30,000 years ago, tectonic forces lifted the earth’s surface between Deniliquin and Echuca-Moama and stopped the mighty Murray’s flow. That earthquake formed a fault line, the Cadell Tilt, which dammed the river and created a lake system. The blocked waters eventually changed course, leaving behind a floodplain ideally suited for the river red gums to colonise. The remnants of the ancient lake system form the Barmah Lake in Victoria and Moira Lake in NSW.

Pollen from soil tests shows that red gums have been growing in the Barmah area for at least 6000 years. Despite more than a century and a half of heavy logging – cut to sleepers, the red gums have been laid as railway tracks in India and beyond – there are still stands of trees believed to be more than 1000 years old. The 28,500ha Barmah National Park, 220km north of Melbourne, was established by the Victorian government in 2010 to protect the remaining river red gums and wetlands. Together with the Murray Valley National Park in NSW, the red gum forest covers 66,000ha.

A circle of forest giants edges the Steamer Plain, which is part of the larger flatlands. Big hollows in the branches and trunks provide habitat for forest creatures; kangaroos graze the grasslands, blacksnakes abound and herds of brumbies gallop over open spaces. The area is also a haven for migratory birds from Alaska, Siberia, China, Japan, Korea, the Pacific Islands, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and New Zealand. “Of the 800 species of birds that can be found in Australia, 236 species have been ¬identified in the Barmah National Park,” says Kingfisher Cruises river guide John Jackson.

Traditional owners say the landscape was once like a big supermarket. “We got fish out of the river, and collected swan eggs when the season was right and turtles out of the creeks and lagoons,” says Yorta Yorta traditional owner Colin Walker. His community, which has been given joint management of the national park, has never lost its connection to the land.

A century and a half of logging and river management for irrigation has significantly changed the forest. Early records describe it as open and park-like, with trees growing to around 45m in height; today they tend to reach 35m and grow more densely. With cattle out of the forest and only limited firewood collection, some people are concerned about increased fire risk. The timber industry is pushing to regain access, despite receiving a multi-million-dollar package to exit the forest when the national park was declared. Now the Abbott Government is considering a trial of “ecological thinning” in the NSW section.

Long-time cattleman Tim Mannion believes human intervention is a good thing for forest health. “It needs to be managed whether it is a national park or a working forest,” Mannion says. “Fire is the biggest danger and if a fire got going on a bad day with the wind in the wrong direction there is no way of stopping it.”

For long-term Barmah resident Tammy Muir, the flooded forest provides both a physical and a spiritual sanctuary. “If you ever get a bit depressed, come into the forest, sit down on a log and look along the creek or trees. Your heart rate goes down and nothing seems to matter anymore,” Muir says.