Good Times Bad Times by Barry Hennessy (a digital story from the Lake Illawarra MAP Project)

MENTOR WRITER: Victoria McIntyre
SYNOPSIS: Lake Illawarra was beautiful once. A lot of that beauty has been lost. This has to be reversed.
SCRIPT: I used to catch squirt worms at the mouth of the Macquarie rivulet where it met the lake.

On one particular occasion, I was hunting for worms and I came across a group of students from Wollongong University.
They were doing a field study on sedimentation in the mudflats and for some reason I joined their group. They didnt kick me out, so I stayed with them and listened with amazement.

The students dug a trench and looked at the layers of
sedimentation, the lecturer pointed out the good times and the bad times that the lake had been through.

To my eyes, much of that history was bad and I realised the lake wasnt in good nick.

When we were kids, the lake was all we had. It was our playground, our entertainment and our place of learning.
My Dad used to teach me about fishing and crabs and birds.
The lake was a major draw card for black swans, widgeon ducks, little terns, sandpipers and a myriad of other bird life.

Looking at the layers of sediment in those mudflats, I knew the lake was no longer a place of learning and enjoyment.

The birds had gone and it was no longer fit for kids to play.

It was dying and I knew this had to be reversed. The Lake has to be restored for the sake of future generations. Because I want my own grandchildren to have their own adventures around the Lake, just as I had mine.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Lake Illawarra
• environment
• community
• digital story