“ALL they can talk about is the water. It’s like Niagara Falls, everyone has to go and see it,” says Chris behind the Kimbolton Kiosk counter.And she’d know. Staff at the tiny store have never known such crowds. Last weekend you would have been lucky to get a car park at the general store beside Lake Eppalock.The view from the top of the lake’s spillway cannot really be likened to Canada’s famous falls, but what it represents for Bendigo is perhaps even bigger.This is life itself returning to the region.This is something we’ve waited for.The people lining Spillway Road is reminiscent of photographs unearthed of Eppalock’s opening, when on April 17, 1964 more than 1000 people came to see Premier Henry Bolte turn the valve to release water from “the great Lake Eppalock” down the Campaspe River.For 70 years the people of Bendigo had advocated for more water storage and Eppalock was seen as the saving grace.It was a much-touted feat of engineering, taking four years and $4.5 million to complete.The Bendigo Advertiser at the time described it as “a signal day in Bendigo’s history” and Bolte famously said the lake would drought-proof the city.“No longer will there be the cry that Bendigo has insufficient water to meet the needs of industrial expansion,” reports stated.Ahh, never say never… if anything, the past decade has taught us that.For 40 years Eppalock did her job well; that is harness the Campaspe River for irrigation, domestic water, recreation and flood mitigation downstream.But once the rain stopped, there was no way Eppalock could live up to Bolte’s prophesy. And the Campaspe proved it was anything but tamed.The river was appropriately named after Alexander the Great’s favourite concubine, Campaspe.Major Thomas Mitchell was a known Greek scholar, so when he surveyed the landscape in the 1830s, he named much of what he saw after Greece’s legendary figures. The Campaspe of ancient Greece was said to be no lady.“Neither was her counterpart – this river with the lovely name, with an unreliable character and willful disregard of the people who settled the valley,” Mr Horsfall said on Eppalock’s opening.“But today’s Campaspe has become respectable and looks like settling down as a useful member of society after a marriage of convenience with the Water Commission, made possible by a dowry forthcoming from the Honorable Treasurer.”Thanks to record spring rains, the Campaspe is back in all her fury; filling Eppalock and flooding Rochester and proving that all the planning and engineering in the world comes second to Mother Nature.“I’ve done a lot of praying for rain – I knew God loved me, but I didn’t know he loved me this much,” says Norma Sutherland of the Lakeshore Caravan Park.Norma and Alex have operated this park for the past 25 years, from the heydays of summer fun to the rapid decline of the waterline.“When we first came here it was beautiful every year, you could almost put money on it,” Norma says.“We’d go away for our June holidays, the water would be down a bit, and by the time we’d come back in August it would be full and spilling over.“Then all of a sudden they took out a fair bit of the water – they had to do some work on the bridge – but God saw fit not to give it to us anymore.“From 2003 we never saw the water full again till now.”Norma says the drought obviously wasn’t good for business, but “fortunately for us, we have a motorbike track and that kept us going. When we lost the boat people we got the motorbike people.“That’s really kept us going here and we really appreciate the people in our park and thank them very much for keeping us going.”Norma says she never doubted the good times would come back again.“I’ve always been one of those sorts of people who believe what goes around comes around,” she says.And as the bookings start flowing in, Norma and Alex are packing up and handing their business to new owners, just in time for a bumper season.“I know I’ll miss the kids terribly – if it wasn’t for the children it would probably be easy to walk away,” she says.“Because we’ve been here so long we’ve seen children grow up, they’ve had children and now they’re bringing their kids back here – it’s a cycle – it’s just beautiful to see.”Back at the Kimbolton Kiosk, proprietor Sam Bonanno steals a quick smoko break. There hasn’t been many in the past week as people make the pilgrimage to witness history.Sam bought the kiosk in 2004, when the lake held 10 per cent of its capacity.“I thought the water would just go up, not down,” he says.“I knew it was a risk because it had been closed for two years when I bought it. It took a lot of work to get it up and running again.”You’ve heard of the pub with no beer; turns out the lake with no water was just as much a talking point back then.“You wouldn’t believe it, but at first I had more customers coming to see the empty lake when it was all dried and cracked,” Sam says.“Since then it’s been a bit of a struggle.”Sam admits most days he wondered what the hell he was doing out here, in this deserted place.He thanks the locals for keeping him afloat.“I love the regulars, the locals, a few boys come down for a drink every night,” he says.“They rely on me now, and I rely on them, it goes both ways.“Now it’s busy they’re saying I should be able to retire next year and all of that crap. But it’s going to take a long time to catch up on the last five years.”All Sam needs now is a little time to go fishing and all’s perfect in his world.Down by the picnic ground Jason Dolevski wades out to the tree line to reel in his rod.Jason and his mates travelled to Eppalock from Melbourne for the day after good reports on the Fisheries Victoria web forum.Last time he was here was 10 years ago.Out at the spillway, there’s lots of elderly people.A few have walking sticks, and they gingerly help each other over the gutter to peer over the railing as a wall of water rages into the river below.“It’s good to see, isn’t it?” smiles a lady of about 80.And the thunder rumbles overhead and the cars keep rolling by.laurenm@bendigoadvertiser.com.au