Aus dry lake springs to life
2007-04-02 10:42
Sydney - Nature lovers are making their way to Australia's normally parched interior for what some believe is a once in a lifetime experience.
Huge monsoon rains in the north-east of the continent have swollen streams into raging rivers that are now gushing over the salt flats of Lake Eyre in outback South Australia.
Lake Eyre is usually just a 9 690-square-kilometre shimmer of crusty white salt. It has only filled four times in the last 150 years. In 1974, the last big flood, the water level rose to a depth of 5.7m.
It's not the body of water that intrepid tourists come to see but the birdlife attracted to an emerging food bowl.
The rush of water hatches the tiny creatures that fish feed on. In turn, water birds - pelicans, swans, cormorants and ducks - fly in by the hundreds of thousands to feast on the fish.
Most of the visitors are "twitchers" - birdwatchers keen enough to go anywhere and suffer the most inhospitable conditions to tick off those species they haven't yet seen. Other visitors are those captivated by the weird majesty of it all.
"I think they find it quite curious that in the dry heart of Australia there's a large amount of water heading down there," charter pilot Trevor Wright told Australia's ABC Radio.
"Water is a major topic with everyone these days and I think people see this water that has fallen in north-west Queensland - it's unique how it's just going down through this channel system through the swamps and then into Lake Eyre."
Wright, who is based in the hamlet of William Creek, said it was too soon to say whether Lake Eyre would fill to its brim as it did in 1974. But there are lots of small bodies of water in the system and they are certain to be inundated.
It all depends if the heavy rains in the monsoonal north continue whether the whole system will fill.
The brave are not waiting. Wright tells of taking parties out over the expanse of the lake to watch the waters flooding through from the north. It's a truly magnificent sight. - Sapa-dpa
- SAPA