The intense and brilliant colours of Australia’s ‘red centre’. Image © Mike Clarke

There is something special about the dry centre of Australia. The red soil, tufts of green spinifex, spectacular ranges rising out of the otherwise flat landscape, and the friendly and welcoming folks that live and work there.

Our team were very excited to head back out to the stunning rangelands of the West Macdonald Ranges, 200km northwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, for the Landscape Rehydration Field Day and Contour Grading School. Our CEO Carolyn Hall also made the trip to celebrate the completion of our contribution to the Centralian Project.

Mulloon's Lance Mudgway, Carolyn Hall and Shane Hunter with Mike Clark (second from right – Centralian Project Manager from Top End Conservation) next to an earth bank at Glen Helen Station

Hewitt, Australia’s largest organic beef company, kindly hosted around forty participants for the two-day event at Narwietooma and Glen Helen stations, feeding us all and providing some great entertainment in the evening with singing, goanna pulls and a boat race (minus a boat and water!). We received so many fantastic questions and had a lot of exciting conversations while demonstrating Mulloon’s principles and methods for landscape rehydration in arid climate regions. The on-ground works we had completed previously were an ideal illustration of the importance of this work both for improving productivity for livestock operations as well as building ecological function and resilience to drought.

A hose demonstration illustrates how water flows in different landscape contexts

Lance demonstrating the key principles of landscape rehydration

The second day was devoted to developing practical skills for station grader operators. We brought along Steve, a highly experienced grader operator who had done some fantastic work constructing contour banks for us previously. The attendees of the Grader School each had a turn at constructing a contour bank, with Steve providing expert guidance and insights into how to achieve best results. The participants all walked away with newfound confidence and some extra skills useful for constructing landscape rehydration interventions with a grader.

Grader School provided an excellent opportunity for station workers with grader experience to upskill and learn techniques for constructing contour banks and other landscape rehydration earthworks

With all this excitement and passion for restoring the water cycle in the central Australian landscape, we can’t wait to see what happens next in this space.

The Centralian Project is funded by the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund - Drought Resilient Soils and Landscapes Program through Charles Darwin University and the Northern Hub. 