Lake Eyre

Saturday 16 June was overcast and a storm threatened. We decided to wait until Sunday for the flight. Geoff unloaded the back seat of their car and took us 150Kms up the Birdsville Track to find Coopers Creek. There was much more water in small lakes by the roadside (due to local rain) but we knew that the track was no longer blocked by the Cooper. Lake Harry (about 10Kms across) was right up next to the Track.

Because the Cooper flood had dispersed we were able to walk around where the track used to go. It looked very green.

You can see the new part of the Track in the middle of the frame behind the small gum tree.

This is a recognised camping area in the "off" season and the kites love the rubbish people leave behind.

It took 3hrs of driving and about an hour exploring so we were "home" at the Maree caravan park quite late.Good excuse for a pub meal.

Sunday dawned clear and cool with a light wind. Feeling we had picked the weather very well we set off for the airfield (10 mins down the road) at the unholy hour of 7:30am.

Talk about small! The plane looked about the same size as the kites we saw yesterday.

The pilot took us over the Birdsville track to the Cooper so we saw again from the air what we had seen yesterday on the ground. It looked dry yesterday. From the air it looked caked. Dry sandy gravel stretched from horizon to horizon. Broken only by a dry creek bed and its attendant trees. The explorers looked for the lines of trees marking creek beds because they could usually find water there if they dug far enough.

The Cooper is interrupted by a natural causeway. The causeway blocks the river in dry times so above it, it is like a river, and below simply a series of billabongs and small puddles. The punt which ferried us across last year is situated above the causeway and remains in the river until it is needed whith the next flood.

Even when it is flooding, Coopers Creek only drains into smaller subsiduary lakes. It seldom reaches Lake Eyre. The smaller lakes simply start to disappear when the dry seasons approach

 We had heard "that it was no longer full", "that you need water to reflect the clouds", "that we should have come last year", and so on. But Lake Eyre was simply stunning> The salt is precipitating mixed with mud. When it is windy the salt and mud form amazing patters.

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And here we are. Still grinning , thrilled to have seen what we had seen.

The tall bloke in the middle is Andy the pilot, our friends are Geoff and Shirley Harvey, but where did the garden gnome come from?