Water diving is a method that dates back to the 1500’s and is still used today as a means of locating underground water sources. Its popularity is growing in regional Australia- despite no ne being able to explain how water can be detected with bent metal rods.
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00:00 Droughts are inevitable in Australia and in drier times people have to look below the
00:08 surface to find water, using methods more unorthodox than others.
00:12 Walk around with these rods and they start doing funny things, whether they were either
00:17 cross or part.
00:20 Now back in WA they always crossed for me, but funny enough here they swing that way.
00:27 So I mark the ground and see if I can, looking at a stream or a basin of water, but it seems
00:35 to be streams here, but the science behind it, I've got no idea, it's intriguing.
00:41 Water divining is an age old practice that many people swear by despite a lack of scientific
00:46 explanation.
00:48 Even Stephen McAndrew, who divines, doesn't know how it works.
00:52 It just doesn't make sense to me, but it seems to work, and yeah, very strange.
00:57 Don't know, but I've always been able to do it.
01:01 A lot of people say they can't do it.
01:03 I disbelieve it, I reckon everyone can do it, they just don't know what they're seeing.
01:09 Well I actually get a feeling before they move, like a tingling feeling, and then one
01:16 will start before the other generally, and then I try and stop them to be honest, because
01:21 that's probably my doubt coming in, going is that me doing it?
01:25 Here they go.
01:26 If I really grip it, it'll keep them straight.
01:31 Roman Duvenchak owns a drilling company in Townsville, mainly drilling bores, which are
01:36 holes in the ground that produce clean water.
01:39 He also offers divining as a service.
01:42 The information that I provide to a potential client, it comes down to that this is a good
01:49 option, and it's much better than 10 metres to the left or to the right.
01:55 Roman reckons calibration is the key to good divining.
01:59 Just because you pick up a wire and it turns, it doesn't mean that there's water on the
02:02 ground there for you.
02:03 Calibrating yourself to underground water, as opposed to rare earth minerals, shallow
02:10 irrigation lines, they're all completely different fields, and they take a large amount of time
02:17 to hone in on.
02:19 Roman's okay with not having all the answers.
02:22 Everybody wants to prove or disprove, and it's so easy to discredit and so easy to be
02:29 negative about.
02:30 But, at the end of the day, having drilled countless bores, it's hard to not believe
02:39 in it.
02:40 And those in the industry that do a lot of drilling just will not drill without divining.
02:46 But if you're wanting to find water, and divining isn't your vibe, there are other options.
02:52 There's lots of information available through government websites that can help figure out
02:59 the types of aquifers that you might have at your property, how deep groundwater might
03:03 be, and what types of yields you might get.
03:06 For a hydrogeologist, after we've done these background searches to get an idea of what
03:13 aquifers might be there, we would typically use geophysics.
03:18 With more than 20 years of experience in the hydrogeology industry, Dr Louisa Rochford
03:23 has never considered water divining.
03:25 I guess as a scientist, you deal more with the physical world, whereas, I don't know,
03:32 my understanding of divining is it's more about intuition and energy and those types
03:39 of things.
03:40 She too, struggles to explain the practice.
03:43 It's almost like Reiki or a practice like that, energy and intuition, those sorts of
03:53 elements, which is really quite different from science in a lot of ways.
03:58 Science really looks at physical aspects and physical things that provide evidence of something.
04:08 But as the rising cost of living puts pressure on farmers, picking up two metal rods to find
04:13 a resource as precious as water remains an attractive option.
04:17 I think there's a lot of electronic gadgets out now that can send signals down and they
04:23 give it a reading.
04:24 I've never looked into that.
04:26 I always trusted the old bent bit of steel.
04:30 Almost free.
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