19th - 20th April 2016
Sunbaking at the Lake......not really. Taking photos!
Another night on a patch of lovely dirt at William Creek. Oodnatta Track damage.....NIL amazingly! Worst road so far. They don't seem to be getting any better.
Time to hit the Oodnatta Track. Surely can't be as bad as the Birdsville Track........wrong! You want a 4WD adventure, head out here. Not to mention the flies...have I mentioned the flies???
So we are are on our big adventure with secret map in hand, to find the secret track to the edge of Lake Eyre. Off we go ........
Looks tame enough right??? Not!
A snippet shot of the Ghan Railway.
The Dingo Fence runs from The Nullabor near Nundroo on the Eyre Penninsular, through S.A., NSW, and ends in the Darling Downs in Qld. It is the longest man made structure in the world. Designed to keep the dingos on one side (western) where there are cattle, and no dingos on the eastern side where there is sheep farming. It stretches for 5,614 klm.
Not far out of Marree there is the bizarre array of art sculpture. No idea about the story behind it, but it was fascinating to wander around in the middle of nowhere checking it out!
Gibber, gibber everywhere!
We managed to find the secret turn off and headed down the track. Eventually we needed to drop the van to get to the edge of Lake Eyre.
We were at Lke Eyre South where the white area is west of Marree.
And there it was. The White of he salt is incredibly dazzling. Have to say I was so excited to finally be here!
Emu and dingo tracks in the salt crust.
This is how close we managed to get. Pretty amazing. It's not that easy to do. The ground is very soft.
The flora is so hardy.
Thought this was very funny.
Big, big exciting day today. Two hour flight over Lake Eyre. Take off at 7.00 a.m. What?!?!! Will have to set the alarm. Which Dezzi did.....on Queensland time! Couldn't figure out why it was so dark. Oh well, half an hour early. Better than late!
And got to see the awesome sunrise.
William Creek airport. No cafe. Bummer!
This is the plane. Cosey.
I tried to get the front seat but lost the toss. Damn! And somehow ended up in the very back back. Why? Because I'm little and could climb over the seats. Not fair! All good, though. Everyone gets a window seat.
First sighting of the Lake. Dazzlingly spectacular from the air.
I will now bore you with many, many photos. It was hard to put up just these ones.
The reflections of the clouds on the perfectly still water were mind boggling. It was like looking down through a 3-D picture.
Water and salt.
Desert sands and green salt bush. The vegetation from this years rains will last and feed cattle for about 18 months. We flew over Kidman's Anna Creek station. The very one that is in the media at the moment up for sale. They normally run 30-40,000 head of cattle. At the moment there are only 15,000 due to the drought.
The Warburton River, which is one of the main feeders into the Lake.
And of course birds, birds, birds. There are around 70,000! A vast majority are Pelicans. They come from all over coastal Australia. Why? Because the fish are so superior to anything, anywhere else. And plenty of them. But how do they know when to come to central Australia! No one knows. Nature is so fascinating!
Up towards Birdsville. This is the Simpson Desert.
Neales River, which actually is the mai water feeder into the Lake.
Simpson Desert again. Everywhere is so green from the flooding! The brown sandy areas were actually full of water not long ago.
The western edge of the Lake.
Spunky pilot Matt!
This was one of the best experiences I have ever had! What an amazing country we live in.
The added bonus was the Dezzi packed up the van while I was gone and was waiting for me to hit the road to Coober Pedy 😄
On the road again. What will this one be like. Only 166 klm today.
Comments
Post a Comment