Stories of the Snowy Mountains Scheme are many and varied, and Watershed Years tells some of them, from the viewpoints of several characters and the overall view of the Narrator.
The Snowy Mountains regions represent a difference in the Australian landscape. There, in the 1950s and 1960s, people from seventy countries lived and worked together, learning about each others’ cultures. These were indeed watershed years, the beginning of a new stage in the ancient landscape.



A work of fiction based upon people's lives on the famous Snowy Mountains Scheme, Varday's Watershed Years is anecdotal, vivid and moving. Combining history and myth, it is both commemorative and provocative. It directs attention to an important place and time in Australian experience.

Dr Brian Edwards

The Snowy Mountains Scheme, Australia's largest engineering project, is the background for Varday's novella Watershed Years. In the Snowgum settlement and surrounding regions, migrant and Australian workers and few women carve their lives amid a rugged environment. There's also a mysterious murder!

Heidi Wallenborn, Journalist

Margo, a young Australian woman, follows her Hungarian-born husband, a staff administrator, to the town of Snowgum. While of special interest to those who worked in the Snowy at the time, the portrayal of Margo's and other characters' lives makes interesting reading.

Ann Williams