Road are just swallowed by the flood waters....
As far as the eye can see there is an ocean of muddy brown water slowing making its way passed Birdsville, into and out of Goyder Lagoon and ultimately down the Warburton into Lake Eyre....
Often the roads have been built to run along the sand ridges but every now and then the ridge runs out and the road is submerged in the flood...
Just one more photo and then we are out of the Diamantina channel country. We have seen a flood that happens once in a hundred years...
Yep! that's a lot of water.As we get back above dry country there are more surreal views made up by lakes, sand-hills, and verdant vegetation....
Graham makes a point of pointing out the exact location of Haddon Corner on the Queensland-South Australian border. Down there, just before the straight line make a wiggle going over the line of hills is small marker; that's Haddon Corner. Can you name the other five corners in Australian state borders? Give up now, you will never get it, just call Graham...
By the way the line that runs along the border and wiggles over the hills is the Dingo Fence; the longest man made structure in the world.
As we fly east we can clearly see the watershed between the Diamantina and Cooper Creek catchments. On one side the streams run west and on the other they run east, with just a thin strip of a mountain range to define where the raindrop will go.
In close up parts the mountain range looks like some ancient fortress...
Maybe we are getting tired but we are starting to see strange alien worlds inspired land formation. Or may be we've just had too many wines and nibbles since we left Birdsville...
Back into the Cooper Creek region...
The earlier flood has left the channel country a sea of green, green grass. From up here you can clearly see why they call it the channel country....
Further east we cross the strip of opal rich land. This time we are able to see Hayricks the largest open cut opal mine in the world...
As we get closer to Charleville there are some impressive storm cells for the pilots to deftly avoid.
A light shower of rain welcomes us back to Charleville and the rainbow that it leaves is a sign that today has been indeed a magical, once in a lifetime sort of day.
Refueled, new crew we say good bye to Graham and Deb and head home to Brisbane touching down at 7.40pm. What a day!!
At $1699 each the trip cost a lot of money, but at three times that price we reckon it would still be worth every cent. Graham our guide was incredible. The service staff of Skytrans were friendly, helpful and nothing was too much trouble for them. The food was more than plentiful and delicious.
All in all the trip exceeded our expectations on every level. If we win lotto we'd do it again next year and the year after.
