Thursday 25 June 2009

Lake Eacham


I'm planning to get a bit more exercise by doing the circuit of Lake Eacham on a regular basis. (Note that 'regular' ≠ 'frequent' and could mean anything from every day to once a year.) It's only 3 km, so makes a nice post-breakfast walk. And rainforest is a good place to think.



Eacham is a crater lake at the eastern edge of the Atherton volcanic province. Like its larger sibling, Lake Barrine, and the cousin that we don't talk about (the crater at Mt Hypipamee) it is rumoured to be bottomless. I'm not sure how bottomless lakes work. Is there a constant inflow to counteract the evaporation near the Earth's core? Or is there is an equivalent body of water at the lake's antipodes, so you can dive all the way to the surface of whatever's on the other side? Which, if my calculations are correct — and they almost certainly aren't — is somewhere between the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and West Africa. So maybe the core acts as a still, super-heating the Atlantic Ocean, which then condenses as Lake Eacham. See, I said it was good for thinking.

(The crater is really about 65 m from rim to bottom.)

Turtle wonders whether it fancies a holiday in the Cape Verde Islands.