Growing Up on the Lake, Chapter 42 - by Lindsay Smith (Lake Illawarra MAP Project)

MENTOR FILM MAKER: Len Glasser
SYNOPSIS: Lindsay smith, OAM, is one of the most active naturalists and environmentalists in NSW. Born in 1951, he grew up on Lake Illawarra and his CHildhood tales are rich with adventure, discovery, invention, characters and wildlife.
SCRIPT: It was like a voyage of discovery without the boats, sort of thing. Mind you we had a lot of fun with boats. Living at Berkeley, as I said, the Islands in the Lake, the rainforest islands: Hooka Island and Gooseberry Island. Gooseberry Island is the biggest of the two.
Sometime, it must have been in the 40s or thereabouts, or early 50s, before I got there, theyd dug a canal on Mullet Creek. Mullet Creek basically comes out near Kannahooka. But for some reason theyd built these tank traps, as we called them which came from a bend in Mullet Creek, straight down to opposite Hooka Point. And they had all these poles driven into the mud there which we used to swim out and use those as diving things. The erosion over the years has taken those out. Basically it made an island of the point opposite Hooka Island and very low lying area of shell flats, sand flats. An area we called the sandy island, which was inhabited by the sand pipers and birds that I know today to be Red Capped Plovers and Little Terns used to nest there and we became pretty proficient at finding little terns nests and polvers nests. We could find them before the eggs were laid so we knew the eggs were fresh.

Wading across the shallow there at the entrance of Hooka Creek out to the sandy islands and then from the sandy islands we wade across to Hooka Island. It would only come up to our chests. And building canoes out of corrugated iron and fruit boxes. Sealing up the nail holes with tar wed pilfered off the sides of the roads, wed heat it all up and poke it in the holes and seal all these things up. Wed set forth in these tin canoes and paddle out to the Islands in the lake.

I can still remember one time when John and I, John Lavargic and myself were coming back from the Islands in our tim canoe. In those days we used to sink the canoes in the Lake. Wed mark where they were and wed walk around there and find them. Next time we wanted to go out wed pull them out of the water, empty it out. Well it saved carrying it all the way home plus storage. One day we were sinking one of the canoes, sinking the canoe to hide it and there was some chap walking along the edge of the road, or he might have been driving along the edge of the road. He might have been one of the people who had a car. And he saw us floundering, he thought, in the Lake in this canoe and he thought we were drowning. So he ripped all his shoes and socks off and plunged into the Lake towards us and then of course we stood up. The water was only about a metre deep and we were about 100 metres off shore. Poor Bugger!. Are you alright? Are you alright? Oh yeah, were just hiding our canoe
Lindsay smith, OAM, is one of the most active naturalists and environmentalists in NSW. Born in 1951, he grew up on Lake Illawarra and his CHildhood tales are rich with adventure, discovery, invention, characters and wildlife.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Lake Illawarra
• digital story
• Berkeley
• Gooseberry Island
• Hooka Island
• canoe
• little terns
• Mullet Creek
• tank trap