| Description |
1 videodisc (DVD) (55 min.) : sd., col. ; 4 3/4 in |
| Series |
Constructing Australia
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| Summary |
This is the story of how two men shared a vision for opening up Western Australia, by pumping a river of water through pipes across the desert. There were isolated goldfields full of precious metal, but the people were dying of thirst. Western Australia's first Premier and leading explorer, Sir John Forrest, envisioned taking water to the goldfields; and, in Charles Yelverton O'Connor, he found the man he needed to realise his dreams. Piping water across the desert was the biggest and most ambitious engineering project of its kind in the world, then. It would save thousands from disease and drought; unlock untold riches in gold; and allow Western Australia to take its rightful place as a state in the new Commonwealth of Australia. The construction of the pipeline took five years, and was dogged by controversy. It also ruined reputations and pushed one individual to breaking point. In the early 1900s, during the founding of the new Australian Commonwealth, the dream of water in the goldfields finally became a reality. The project created one of the biggest weirs in the southern hemisphere and one of the longest pipelines in the world |
| Notes |
Off-air recording of ABC2 broadcast September 1, 2007. Copied under Part Va of the Copyright Act |
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Off-air recording of National Geographic Channel broadcast May 10, 2010. Copied under Part Va of the Copyright Act |
| Credits |
Director: Franco Di Chiera |
| Performer |
Narrated by Wendy Hughes |
| Notes |
DVD |
|
No rating given |
|
Available for Deakin University staff and students only |
| Subject |
Pipelines -- Western Australia -- Design and construction
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Water-supply -- Western Australia
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Water-supply engineering -- Western Australia -- History
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| Author |
Hughes, Wendy
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De Chiera, Frank
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ABC-TV (Australia)
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National Geographic Channel (Television station)
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