Much of the estimated 600,000 tonnes of water the 250 hectare farm receives each year is now harvested into its soils, which feed pastures, a stream and unconnected ponds that have appeared since the Peter and Kate Marshall took over.

The stream, clear and permanently flowing between thickly-vegetated banks, has evolved from a bare gully that channelled water straight off the farm.

Some of the principles that Peter and Kate Marshall have used to effect the transformation have similarities to those used by Natural Sequence Farming founder Peter Andrews, but are executed differently.

The Marshalls have drawn much of their inspiration from other cultures that grew adept at managing scarce water over eons—the Anasazi and Pueblo nations of the American south-west, Chinese irrigation farmers, ancient Persians, and the beaver, "a model animal for us because it creates leaky weirs that rehydrate the landscape".

The creek was regenerated through the use of "fascines", poles of brushwood wired together, rolled into large bundles, and then placed at strategic points in eroded gullies.

Mr Marshall has also used structures made of earth and porous geo-textiles.

The fascines allow flood water to flow through, but catch debris, slowly building up a barrier that is "living" in that it offers habitat to water creatures and plants, allows water to percolate through, but also creates enough blockage to create a billabong upstream.

Mr Marshall considers his fascines as an engineered replacement for the fragmites reed beds that once made "steps" in Australian waterways, forming pools and slowing water flow. The reeds colonise older fascines, eventually replicating the original "steps".

In flood, these "leaky weirs" ensure that water moves sideways onto the floodplain, where its speed is reduced and sediment settles out, adding fertility to the landscape.

In non-flood times, water still moves sideways from the billabongs, but through the soil. This lateral movement provides permanent in-soil moisture, shielded against evaporation, to feed pastures.

As the creek draws down in dry times, water moves from the floodplain back to the creek, maintaining a permanent flow between rain events.

Directing water into the soil has been a primary objective of the Marshall’s management, and has been so successful that gilgais covering half a hectare, with no connection to the stream, can fill up overnight after rain, purely from sub-surface water flow.