Notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather: The role of precipitation in the catchment

Colonial Gippslanders preferred moderate, permanent flow. For this to occur, steady and reliable rainfall is needed. If there is anything in Australia that is reliably unreliable, it is rainfall. The epigraph from the Gippsland Times in 1870 tells a story of seasonal bewilderment, of people whose expectations about rainfall are thrown firmly out of kilter.³ Chapters 2 and 3 demonstrated how migrants from Europe were encouraged by their culture in multiple ways to expect regular rainfall, lush greenness and permanent surface water as the norm. The mountainous parts of Gippsland come as close as possible to this as the Australian