New bridge ensures remote NT community ‘will never be caught again’

When Nola Sweetman and her late husband Derek bought land near Katherine almost 50 years ago, they didn’t realise that every wet season they would be cut off from civilisation for weeks at a time. 

Their family home sat down a dusty road, north of a small bridge that was built sometime during World War II.

When they moved in, nearby Leight Creek was barely a trickle.

Little did the Sweetmans know that each year the monsoonal rains would drown the bridge completely.

“A lady who lived here said, ‘There is only one drawback, it floods every year – you’ll have to row across’,” Mrs Sweetman said.

“My husband said, ‘Bring it on’, because he was a King’s Cup rower for South Australia, so he couldn’t wait.”

For the next 49 years until he passed away, Mr Sweetman diligently rowed his wife hundreds of metres back and forth across the swollen waterway.

Along with about 20 other families living on rural blocks north of Katherine, the Sweetmans would watch the river closely during the wet months and always have their boat ready to launch.

“We needed a car on both sides,” Ms Sweetman said.

“We all went together. Derek would put the tinny in the back of the tip truck, the children would hop in … and away we’d go.

“Sometimes getting to the car on the other side, [the children’s] feet would get very, very muddy so we’d stop off at the [Katherine] Town Council to wash under the tap.

“But in all those years, the children only missed a couple of days of school.”

Promised solution years in the making

For most, the Leight Creek bridge was a cause of frustration as years passed and promises of a new, higher bridge were never kept.

Then in 2016, residents welcomed $1.5 million in federal funding to construct the waterway crossing, and in 2019, the Northern Territory contributed additional funds.

However, a tender was only released for the project early in 2021 and construction finished in January this year..

For Mrs Sweetman, the years of being flooded offered an “adventure” which created great memories.

In the years since her husband’s death, Mrs Sweetman has relied on her son to take her across the raging creek, or hunkered down to wait for the water to subside.

“I think all of us living on this side know to have lots of food in the pantry, just in case,” she said.

An improvement within budget limits

The new Leight Creek bridge has been built to withstand flood levels of up to 13.1 metres.

However, not long after completion, it had to be closed briefly in the wake of Tropical Cyclone Tiffany, which crossed the western coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria as a category 1 system.

Katherine Town Council’s director of infrastructure and environment Brendan Pearce said while the new, single-lane bridge was not immune from future floods, it was an improvement.

“The old crossing would have gone underwater every year for periods of five, six days at a time … the new high-level bridge will still go underwater, it’s controlled by the Katherine River, but it might now only happen every one to two years maybe for a day at a time,” Mr Pearce said.

According to the council, the Katherine River has exceeded 13.1 metres 19 times in the last 20 years. 

At a cost of $3.7 million, Mr Pearce said there was no room left in the budget to build the bridge any higher.

“It would need to be two kilometres long and seven metres higher to be the same height as the bridge that crosses the Katherine River,” he said.

New crossing marks end of an era

The bridge has been welcomed by most, but Mrs Sweetman says she will miss the days of camaraderie as her community came together to safely navigate the waterway.

“We will never be caught again [by the floodwater], but the downside is that we don’t all meet with our boats down there and that was lovely,” she said.

“We caught up, we said, ‘Hi’, we said, ‘Bye’, and off we went, and we’d see everyone the following morning.

“I think I’ll miss that.

“Now I don’t see anyone.”

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