seldo
14-07-2010, 11:16 PM
A couple of weeks ago 3 mates and i thought we should go and have a look at the once-in-a-life-time of Lake Eyre in full flood - well - 75% full anyway.
Just got back from a 5 day trip by light aircraft down to have a look at Lake Eyre, Cooper’s and the Channel Country in flood – Sensational.
Myself, Rob and 2 other mates (one of whom is a pilot and part-owner of the plane) flew out of Sydney, over the Blue Mts and Central West Slopes and Plains to the arid North West then found the Darling River at Tilpa and followed it down to the Paroo flood-plain, then across to White Cliffs in SA. We did a tour of the local sights there, had a look at a couple of the local opal diggings, the failed Solar Power Station, and finally spent the night at the simply awesome Underground Dug-Out Motel. This is a 34 room Motel dug into the side of the hill out of raw rock, and the rooms are all just like caves. It was very comfortable and despite being almost freezing outside the Motel runs at a year-round constant 22deg. A great experience.
Next day we flew across the Strzelecki Desert, past the Northern end of Lake Frome, over the Flinders Ranges, Maree where the Oodnadatta and Birdsville Tracks start, across between Lake Eyre South and Lake Eyre North, around the Southern end of Lake Eyre North, and into William Creek (population 12) on the Oodnadatta Track where we stayed at the old tin pub there. (It made the Outback Creek Hotel look like the Hilton) BTW – beers $8 !! – also a bit like the Hilton… Also - amazing to see the Strzelecki Desert sand-hills all lined up row after row, like kids at school assembly.....but poking out of miles of flood-waters.
Then around the West and North sides of Lake Eyre then via the Warburton Groove (where most of the water enters), up the wetlands feeding in from South West Queensland, the Simpson Desert on our left, then across to Innamincka on Cooper Creek, passing some oil and gas fields along the way.
Took a local tour including a Burke & Wills’ cairn up the creek and the new geothermal power station which is supposed to power the town (residents very sceptical).
Crossed more sand ridges and more oil and gas fields, then a large stretch of open country in SW Queensland and NW NSW, then on to circle Bourke before landing. To the delight of the residents, there is now plenty of water to be seen in the Darling, and we took a paddle steamer tour up and down the river on arrival.
We’d planned to leave Bourke on Saturday morning, but the weather forecast was for “strong turbulence, low heavy cloud and some rain” so we thought Bourke looked really good for another day. Hired a little car (a Suzuki which was all they had) and did a bit of running around but were told in no uncertain terms that we weren’t to leave the bitumen roads… Well – we didn’t go that far off the main roads, but did go out to have a look at the so-called Fort Bourke which was built by Major Mitchell as protection from the Aborigines during one of his fruitless searches to find the inland sea, or else follow the Darling all the way to the Murray…
It had rained over night so the “road” was very sticky and because it was along the top of a levee-bank and was only as wide as the car, we had no choice but to press on. It became more and more cut-up as we were following someone else’s very recent tracks and they’d made hard work of it. We finally met the guy who had walked back along the track with a shovel to fill-in his worst messes which he explained were because he was towing a van with his 4WD and had barely made it at all…
When we got to Fort Bourke it was a total let-down. Apparently the original had deteriorated/burned/ and been pilfered over the last 165 years and the council had built a very poor excuse for a replica – (they claim no-one had any record of original dimensions), but it was only about 3m x 3m and would not have kept out a keen ‘roo let alone a tribe of marauding Indigenous with spears. It was supposedly to have housed a dozen cattle, the men and their horses. Very disappointing.
We also went to see the old weir and locks from the time when the river THE form of transport for supplies in, and wool out. Once again though, the mud was so sticky that after 3 paces you were 100mm taller and it just kept accumulating under the guards....
We made it back again safely but the car was looking decidedly rally-ish so we called into the cotton gin there for a quick look and managed to spy a tap and hose on the grass, so helped ourselves to that and scraped and hosed about 30kg of mud from under the guards and around and about.
We had a pleasant flight back to Sydney and flew right over Mt Panorama and also the Blue Mountains, Hydro Majestic, and the Jamieson Valley. All looked fantastic from the air.
It was quite amazing to see the red desert with a river meandering through middle and then a vivid emerald green border to the river where it had flooded.
Lake Eyre is amazing – it’s about 75% full at present but apparently Queensland’s March rains are still only about half-way there… Lake Eyre is apparently the sump or bath-plug of Australia and is about 14m below sea-level, and half of the whole damn country actually eventually drains into it. And it’s no wonder that it takes so long for the rivers to get there because there is almost no fall – the fall is only 350’ in over 2500kms, and when looking at the river close-up it is pretty much impossible to see which way it runs as it moves so slowly. I suspect that 70% goes up in evaporation.
All in all a great trip.
Just got back from a 5 day trip by light aircraft down to have a look at Lake Eyre, Cooper’s and the Channel Country in flood – Sensational.
Myself, Rob and 2 other mates (one of whom is a pilot and part-owner of the plane) flew out of Sydney, over the Blue Mts and Central West Slopes and Plains to the arid North West then found the Darling River at Tilpa and followed it down to the Paroo flood-plain, then across to White Cliffs in SA. We did a tour of the local sights there, had a look at a couple of the local opal diggings, the failed Solar Power Station, and finally spent the night at the simply awesome Underground Dug-Out Motel. This is a 34 room Motel dug into the side of the hill out of raw rock, and the rooms are all just like caves. It was very comfortable and despite being almost freezing outside the Motel runs at a year-round constant 22deg. A great experience.
Next day we flew across the Strzelecki Desert, past the Northern end of Lake Frome, over the Flinders Ranges, Maree where the Oodnadatta and Birdsville Tracks start, across between Lake Eyre South and Lake Eyre North, around the Southern end of Lake Eyre North, and into William Creek (population 12) on the Oodnadatta Track where we stayed at the old tin pub there. (It made the Outback Creek Hotel look like the Hilton) BTW – beers $8 !! – also a bit like the Hilton… Also - amazing to see the Strzelecki Desert sand-hills all lined up row after row, like kids at school assembly.....but poking out of miles of flood-waters.
Then around the West and North sides of Lake Eyre then via the Warburton Groove (where most of the water enters), up the wetlands feeding in from South West Queensland, the Simpson Desert on our left, then across to Innamincka on Cooper Creek, passing some oil and gas fields along the way.
Took a local tour including a Burke & Wills’ cairn up the creek and the new geothermal power station which is supposed to power the town (residents very sceptical).
Crossed more sand ridges and more oil and gas fields, then a large stretch of open country in SW Queensland and NW NSW, then on to circle Bourke before landing. To the delight of the residents, there is now plenty of water to be seen in the Darling, and we took a paddle steamer tour up and down the river on arrival.
We’d planned to leave Bourke on Saturday morning, but the weather forecast was for “strong turbulence, low heavy cloud and some rain” so we thought Bourke looked really good for another day. Hired a little car (a Suzuki which was all they had) and did a bit of running around but were told in no uncertain terms that we weren’t to leave the bitumen roads… Well – we didn’t go that far off the main roads, but did go out to have a look at the so-called Fort Bourke which was built by Major Mitchell as protection from the Aborigines during one of his fruitless searches to find the inland sea, or else follow the Darling all the way to the Murray…
It had rained over night so the “road” was very sticky and because it was along the top of a levee-bank and was only as wide as the car, we had no choice but to press on. It became more and more cut-up as we were following someone else’s very recent tracks and they’d made hard work of it. We finally met the guy who had walked back along the track with a shovel to fill-in his worst messes which he explained were because he was towing a van with his 4WD and had barely made it at all…
When we got to Fort Bourke it was a total let-down. Apparently the original had deteriorated/burned/ and been pilfered over the last 165 years and the council had built a very poor excuse for a replica – (they claim no-one had any record of original dimensions), but it was only about 3m x 3m and would not have kept out a keen ‘roo let alone a tribe of marauding Indigenous with spears. It was supposedly to have housed a dozen cattle, the men and their horses. Very disappointing.
We also went to see the old weir and locks from the time when the river THE form of transport for supplies in, and wool out. Once again though, the mud was so sticky that after 3 paces you were 100mm taller and it just kept accumulating under the guards....
We made it back again safely but the car was looking decidedly rally-ish so we called into the cotton gin there for a quick look and managed to spy a tap and hose on the grass, so helped ourselves to that and scraped and hosed about 30kg of mud from under the guards and around and about.
We had a pleasant flight back to Sydney and flew right over Mt Panorama and also the Blue Mountains, Hydro Majestic, and the Jamieson Valley. All looked fantastic from the air.
It was quite amazing to see the red desert with a river meandering through middle and then a vivid emerald green border to the river where it had flooded.
Lake Eyre is amazing – it’s about 75% full at present but apparently Queensland’s March rains are still only about half-way there… Lake Eyre is apparently the sump or bath-plug of Australia and is about 14m below sea-level, and half of the whole damn country actually eventually drains into it. And it’s no wonder that it takes so long for the rivers to get there because there is almost no fall – the fall is only 350’ in over 2500kms, and when looking at the river close-up it is pretty much impossible to see which way it runs as it moves so slowly. I suspect that 70% goes up in evaporation.
All in all a great trip.