Lake Kardavillawarracurracurracurryaplaarndoo


Once, I did see many starlights shine in the salt lake water - this is true
But was it at Lake Karda-villa-warra-curra-curra-curry-apla-arn-doo ?
And did I get to see the rare water - not just a mirage in the hot air
For so far a place is hard & long in times too out of the way to get there.

If I thought I ought to have brought us all deep outback past Oodnadatta
There'd be nought but tough thought to be caught up a track of rude boneshatter
A man on a saltpan is like a Ghan lost from ghosts of camels in an old caravan,
For the land in a band of a sunstruck hand measures man as in grains of sand.

I once didn't see any starlight shine in the salt lake water - this is true
At Lake Karda-villa-warra-curra-curra-curry-apla-arndoo
Nor did I get to see any rare water except a mirage in the hot air
So long a place is hard too far in times too gone minus a way to get to be there.

If I could only keep wanting the dews to fall there like tears of the world in pain
The salty taste of the few drops I cry might flow out to make lakes again;
But whose tears would it need? to water this thirst-pain with a drink come true?
So we all might swim in Lake Kardavillawarracurracurracurryaplaarndoo?

At Lake Kardvillawarracurracurracurryaplaarndoo
I'd like to see the close starlight shine beneath me in a saltlake water true;
Yes, I'd like to know that the rare water was not just a mirage in the hot air
And I know that I've got to go out too far in times too gone in loss to be there.

Wayne David Knoll
Written, Katherine, NT on Oct 1 1995.

I never did find out where the place is, though I believe it is somewhere in northern South Australia, - maybe an ephemeral dunewater in the Simpson Desert? The name apparantly does mean: the occasional water of starlight seen shining deepest in the reflections. In the Fusion Arts Colony library, which I managed in Malmsbury, Victoria I read about Lake Kardavillawarracurracurracurryaplaarndoo in Read's valuable book ‘Place Names Of Australia’ with a then young Amy Holmes. The name was listed, by the way, under the entry for Lake Cadibarrawirracanna (far north of Woomera) which we skirted as we travelled from William Creek to Coober Pedy in South Australia. So this is for Amy and all "Kids of the Waterholes" - people who enjoy learning the untramelled, the hardest and longest placename in Australia.