Between Charleville which lies on the Warrego River and our next refueling stop, Birdsville which is on the banks of the Diamantina River, we will cruise over the Paroo River, Bulloo River and the giant Cooper Creek.
The patterns in the Mulga country created by pulling trees to feed cattle and sheep during the drought could have been made by aliens like the crop circles in the wheat fields of England...
Over the mighty Bulloo River near Quilpie...
West of Quilpie we traverse the narrow strip of opal fields that stretch from Lightening Ridge in the south to beyond Winton in the north. Here they are mining bolder opal in the open cut "Bull River"mine...
While we enjoy our morning tea of cakes and slice we arrive at what must be the most understated name ever given to a watercourse; Cooper Creek. Cooper Creek is a massive numbers of channels that flow from north to south draining a huge chunk of inland Queensland...
In really, really wet years the water that flows down the Cooper will flow south almost to NSW then turn hard left and flow almost due west past Innamincka which is just in South Australia, then on for about another 1000 kilometres through 3 deserts finally emptying into the eastern edge of Lake Eyre. Now as you can image there has to be a serious downpour of rain somewhere in Qld for water from the Cooper to reach Lake Eyre....
The past few seasons have been very good out on the Cooper. In fact late 2010 and early 2011 the Queensland section of the Cooper was heavily flooded. The flood plain is lush green.
As well as filling all the channels, swamps, billabongs, in really big flood years Cooper Creek overspills into Lake Yamma Yamma, Queensland's largest lake at nearly 90,000ha. The last time it was full was 1989. In 2011 it was filled again...
Just before we arrive at the north-south running border between Queensland and South Australia we see the Road to Innamincka streaking though the outback. This road provides the main access to the oil and gas fields of the lower Cooper Basin...
As we begin to fly along the east-west border between Queensland and South Australia we see on our side of the plane the top end of the Strzeleckie Desert. Not that it looks much like a desert at present after a few years of exceptionally good rainfall...
A river valley in the Strzeleckie Desert makes an almost surreal image...
Most of lakes, rivers and puddles we can see are filled with muddy water. But just over the SA border is the Blue Lake...
Blue because it is a salt water lake and is not muddy like the fresh water lakes that surround it...
As the ever changing landscapes slips by sometimes you would be excused for thinking that you are looking down on the moon not the earth...
The Diamantina River is marked by one thin line on the map. Today that line is 20 to 30km wide in places...
Some places the Diamantina is nothing short of an inland sea of muddy water slowly making its way to Lake Eyre...
As we prepare to land at Birdsville we can see that the town is just an island in a vast expanse of flood water. A few weeks ago there had been another 200mm of rainfall in just a few days across a large part of the northern Diamantina catchment topping up the already flooded river. Birdsville may be safe from flood but no one is going anywhere in or out of town by road for many weeks or even months....
We have a short pit stop in Birdsville to stretch our legs, while the plane takes on more fuel. Our cameras need a break as well. Jenelle is already using the her back up camera to save the batteries in her camera for the main event...
