This research takes place on Boon Wurrung Country, along the coast of Naarm / Port Phillip Bay, a region characterised by swampy lowlands and sandy geology. Prior to colonisation, this region contained numerous variants of saltwater and freshwater ponds, marshes and intermittently open and closed lagoons in a complex array of above and below ground water flows. The Boon Wurrung – original owners of these lands and waters - partnered with Country; to access the water they needed through wells and springs where rivers and swamps were absent or seasonally dry, developing a nuanced understanding of the changing water ecologies that supported food supplies. With the violence of colonisation, much of this watery landscape was gradually filled, piped underground, drained or built over, fundamentally changing the conditions of Naarm’s lowlands and causing periodic water-related issues including flash flooding and the contamination of waterways. This presentation proposes methods to think with/about the violent separation of surface and subsurface in the planning of the city and in the management of water – including yarning, and immersive on-Country learning. We foreground the relational aspects of Indigenous ways of knowing, of conversing with Country about what is ‘under’ to repair memory and place. Water, in this project, is conceptualised as an entity with legacies of past flows that remain in memory, in stories and in archives, and that sometimes have left material traces of their journeys, or they re-emerge as flooding surfaces or urban paths, as a reminder of disrupted connections and potential ways of repairing them.