Lake Eyre's waters bring centre to life
IT began as a monsoonal deluge in distant Queensland, flooding the channel country, isolating towns, and filling rivers and creeks that have not run for years. Now it's here, at Lake Eyre.
This is the moment of magic when the flood empties into Australia's centre, bringing life to a parched and pearly expanse of saltpan that is mostly devoid of it, and hope to communities that have endured more than their share of drought.
With his eagle-eye view from the cockpit of his charter plane, pilot Trevor Wright has been tracking the advance of the torrent for the past fortnight, as anticipation grew of its arrival yesterday at Lake Eyre.
The vast, salt-encrusted basin is the end of the line for the floods that have spread devastation across north and central Queensland, and now northern NSW, providing a poignant counterpoint to the misery unleashed on Victoria by the deadly Black Saturday bushfires.
The flood's headwaters have taken nearly a month to wend their way south from Queensland, along the swollen Diamantina and Georgina rivers, through the veined tracts of channel country straddling the state border, before reaching this corner of desert in South Australia, 700km north of Adelaide.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25103383-2702,00.html
and some beautifull pictures here http://media.theaustralian.com.au/multimedia/200…eyre/index.html