Lake Argyle Post 2

Some more pictures of Lake Argyle and the surrounds.

There were a couple of questions about the last post that are easier
answered by doing a follow up than in comments.

If you enlarge this photo you will see on the LH side the quarry face
from where the rock for the wall was blasted and the roadway that
was built to transport it to the wall site.

Dave queried whether there were crocodiles in the lake, yes,
estimated population 25,000 but they are ALL freshwater species
which are fish eaters and considered harmless to humans?????


There are lots of fish, including the famous Barramundi which is a
great sporting fish to catch and exceptionally good to eat, another
native to the lake is the "Archer" fish, from the tour boat we went
on if you held a small piece of bread out as a target they would
shoot a jet of water at it, if they scored a hit we were asked to
drop the bread into the water as a reward, these little guys were
only about 6 to 8 inches long but could be very accurate up to
about 8 feet, they normally shoot at insects, and gulp them down
when they knock 'em out of the air.

There are many islands in the lake, the tops of peaks that are above
the water line, these have become safe havens for animals birds and
reptiles like the rock wallaby seen here.

This is a barramundi hatchery that has been established to breed
"Barra" for freshwater impoundments throughout Australia's
north, including of course Lake Argyle.

On the left of this photo is the hydro electric plant that generates
power for the surrounding area.


Jim asked for a comparison to the three gorges dam in China; there
is no comparison that I can make, the dam in China dams the
Yangtze River where it is enclosed by hills on either side restricting
it to an average of 1 mile wide, compared to our 40 km average,
their dam wall is concrete and 178 metres high, because of the huge
depth they generate huge quantities of hydro electric power which
seems to be the main purpose of the whole scheme, the quantiry of
water stored is also huge.

They have had to displace 1.3 million people to build, while Lake Argyle
only displaced one family homestead and part of their property.
From the little bit of research I did, they also seem to be encountering
some serious problems like land slip and silting up of downstream
areas, we have not encountered any of these problems as yet and
have been up and running a lot longer the the Three Gorges Scheme.