In the week leading up to the June 6, 2016, Tasmanians were warned to prepare for an extreme weather event. No one could have predicted what happened next.
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The island state was pounded by intense rainfall and strong wind, cutting power to tens of thousands of properties. There was little time to warn residents connected to eight river catchments of the impending danger from major flooding.
One year on, the memories of that week remain and the scars on the landscape and infrastructure are reminders of one of the worst natural disasters in Tasmania’s recent history.
Over 50 separate rainfall records were broken on June 6. One of those was at Latrobe.
The Mersey River flows from Lake Meston in Tasmania’s remote Walls of Jerusalem National Park to the hydro dam of Lake Rowallan. Water then powers through Lake Parangana and regional communities before reaching Latrobe.
Bordering the Mersey River, just south of Latrobe, is Warrawee Forest Reserve. It is a place where you are likely to capture a glimpse of a platypus in the wild.
Warrawee has not always been a reserve. Originally a derelict quarry site, Ron Hedditch and his brothers, Colin and Phillip, along with John Reed devoted 25 years of their lives to constructing a boardwalk, lake, platypus viewing locations and facilities.
Ron is a Latrobe resident and has lived in the town for all of his life. The Hedditch family has a long history in Latrobe. Their great grandfather was one of the first to discover shale on the Warrawee Reserve site. As part of the Latrobe Landcare Group, Ron started volunteering at Warrawee Reserve in 1991.
Over the years the group started taking tourists, from all over the world, into the reserve for platypus tours. Latrobe has shaped its identity on the platypus and the experience provided for tourists.
“Warrawee brought a lot of people into the town. Visitors have said to me over the years that they would never have come to Latrobe or stayed in the town if it hadn’t of been for the platypus,” Ron said.
The volunteer group won a number of awards for their tours. Any revenue went back into preserving the reserve.
Ron pauses. He takes a deep breath.
“Now we’ve got none of it... the floods destroyed everything.”
On June 6 everything at Warrawee Reserve, created by 25 years of hard work, was decimated in a matter of hours.
The course of the Mersey River changed.
Dozens of homes and businesses were inundated by a raging mass of floodwater in the township, with the Mersey River breaching the major flood level. It quickly caught many residents by surprise.
Ron described it as a “terrible flood” adding, “I have never seen anything like it in my time.”
At Warrawee, there was catastrophic damage. Extraordinary amounts of debris and rocks rushed over the cleared areas, boardwalk and roads. The picnic tables, barbeque areas and toilet facilities were all destroyed.
“When you have done 25 years of volunteer work on something like that and to lose it all in a matter of hours… It’s heartbreaking.”
The Latrobe resident had left for New South Wales the week before the severe weather reached Tasmania. He had been watching the weather system develop on the television.
“We got hit by a big storm up in Northern New South Wales. I had no clue that it was going to go right down to Tasmania.”
Ron’s brother called him at the beginning of the week. He only said a few words.
“I think you better stay up there, don’t come home… It’s total devastation.”
Ron has raised concerns that plantations that were put in by Forestry, on the valley behind Latrobe, drained up a lot of water from swamps and wetlands.
“When you get a big rain event, like we had, it all comes down in one great big gush. There is nothing to hold it back. It is going to be a problem for evermore.”
“I’ve tried for the last 10 years for governments to see what the problem is and put some of these wetlands back. It has never happened.”
A few years before the floods, the Parks and Wildlife Service took over ownership of Warrawee from Forestry Tasmania as part of department restructuring. The Latrobe Landcare Group continued to manage the reserve.
Ron notes that before the floods, Parks and Wildlife had little interest in the area and after the floods Warrawee seemed to slip further into sites that the agency did not have time for.
“Parks and Wildlife were never cooperative from day one. They didn’t really want to do anything there and they didn’t want us to do anything there either.”
“They have done nothing in the time since the flood and for the best part of 18 months before the flood, we felt as if we were unwanted.”
One year has passed since Latrobe and its special spot, Warrawee Reserve, were impacted by the relentless torrent of water.
Daily life has returned to Latrobe. But Warrawee remains devastated and in ruins. It is no longer a tourist and local hotspot. No infrastructure and viewing platforms remain. It is far from the beautiful setting it used to be.
Ron declared Warrawee “a lost cause” and has focused his energy on preserving a different location.
Since September, he has been working, with the help from Green Army volunteers, on rehabilitating Pig Island, just a short walk from Latrobe’s centre. The island was also left extensively damaged after the floods.
“We’ve been planting trees to preserve some of the river banks. If we get another big flood we are afraid that it could take out more infrastructure,” he said.
“Those banks are going to keep eroding… that’s the problem. There is nothing to hold them.”
Latrobe Council was able to organise the Green Army group to work with Landcare. The Federal government has now scrapped the program.
“We were lucky that we got the group from Green Army. Groups like us rely on these people. They have been very good. There is no way we could have got it like it is without them,” he said.
The boardwalk at Warrawee, covered in silt and debris, was due to be bulldozed and taken to the tip by Parks and Wildlife but Ron, and his volunteers, took back what they had created. They have been working to reinstate it on Pig Island.
Ron notes that it is hard visiting Warrawee and seeing it in the state that it is in.
“Until we removed the boardwalk, I hadn’t been up there. One of my brothers still won’t go.”
At first, Ron had fears the floods had a significant impact on platypus numbers and worried that Latrobe would not be able to live up to its title as the platypus capital.
However, he believes that numbers have gradually returned and the Mersey is once again a platypus hotspot.
“I don’t think we have actually lost too many… for a while there weren’t many. They have gradually come back.”
“With our platypus tours we still had a lot of enquiries prior to Christmas. We could have done tours but did not see it was safe to take people up there.”
On Christmas Eve, the group conducted their first tour since the floods in a location not as severely impacted as Warrawee.
“We then did quite a few in January and through to March. People are still interested but we have not got the infrastructure to be able to take people now.”
The Landcare group has found it difficult not having the revenue from regular tours in the year since the floods.
Ron reflects back on Warrawee as a “very special area”.
Conservative estimates have put the cost of repairing the damage inflicted at Warrawee at over one million dollars.
Ron admits that it does not look likely that Warrawee will have a future under the operation of Parks and Wildlife.
“A lot of people have approached me since the floods, asking if there is any chance of getting it back… if the younger ones really want it, it is up to them to fight for it,” he said.
“We are running out of steam. When you get to my age you can’t do what you use to do.”
In today’s ever-changing, technological world it remains to be seen if a new generation of volunteers will put their stamp on Warrawee.
At this stage, the only hope for future development at Warrawee is the prospect of the creation of mountain bike trails outlined in the Wild Mersey Mountain Bike project. The joint venture proposed between the Kentish and Latrobe councils aims at injecting more money into the local economy and drawing more tourists to the communities.
However, the once pristine area along the river, where Ron and the group dedicated so much of their time and money, will remain untouched.
The devastating floods of June 2016, not only changed the course of the Mersey River, but changed the community of Latrobe. Warrawee Reserve will never be the same.
June 6 was the end of that dream.