Australian-Geographic-Magazine-September-Octobe..

130 Australian Geographic

PICTUR ED HER E IN 2009, Sarah Sard, a new resident of Booleroo, South Australia, shows friends

the dress she wore to a wedding the previous weekend. Booleroo sits on Goyder’s Line – an imaginary

mark that snakes its way across the state from Ceduna in the west, to south of Blanchetown on the

Murray R iver in the east. The nation’s drought of 1864–65 resulted in one of the least recognised

land-management accomplishments of early Australia. For nearly two years farmers had struggled:

livestock perished, crops failed, vegetation dwindled and topsoil billowed away. George Goyder,

the state’s surveyor-general, was sent north to discover the extent of the drought, and his resultant

boundary was believed to indicate the edge of land suitable for cultivation. North of the line rain is

not consistent, and the land is better suited to pasture – but south of it, the land receives an average

of at least 250mm rainfall annually, which is enough to sustain crops. Although rainfall varies, the

boundary holds true today – 150 years later – and the residents of Booleroo, and other towns along

Goyder’s line, put livestock to graze to the north and harvest crops to the south.

Line in the sand

PHOTOGR APH BY JAMES McCOR MACK AG 96, OCT–DEC 2009, OUT TAKE

R EWIND

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