AUSTRALIA: A list of things you may like to do

Lake Eacham is an isolated lake in an extinct volcano — a lake that has an average depth of over 60 metres. Another interesting thing about the lake is that there are no known streams either going in or out… this fact, combined with the rocks that make up the local environment makes for the clearest water that I have ever swum in.

Aboriginal Legend

The local Aboriginal peoples have a legend of how the lake was formed. Geological evidence dates the volcanic activity to 12,000 years ago, making this an oral account of an event six times as deep into the past as Julius “I was stabbed 23 times and then field-promoted to god” Caesar:

Two young fellas were trying to spear that wallaby. But they missed and hit a flame tree.

That’s a sacred tree.

The young fellas not supposed to be out hunting. They weren’t initiated. Their elders told them to stay put, not go out hunting. But they didn’t listen. When they pulled their spear out, part of a grub came out with the spear, which was a witchetty grub. They started cutting down that tree to get more grubs. When they cut down that tree, the ground began to shake.

Those two fellas had made Yamini [the Rainbow Serpent] angry. Then the sky turned orange, then all these people back at the camp, the earth went from underneath them, sucked them in, whoosh, they all got drowned.

Where they were camped became Bana Wiingina [Lake Eacham].