After rare flooding event, Aussies are flocking our largest lake
After downing my burger and pint at the hotel, I meet Wrightsair pilot Jaiden Carter next door for a private aerial tour.
It's a cool 15 degrees outside, but our white four-seater Cessna 172 glows like a firebrand in the afternoon sun.
After a safety briefing, we're wheels up and soaring over clay flats and dunes stubbled with kerosene grass and saltbush.
Within minutes, we encounter what looks like a vast inland sea at Halligan Bay Campground. Carter shares how record-breaking rainfall in Queensland in January and February created an 'inland tsunami' that has slowly surged inland to Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre.
Satellite photos reveal a slow transformation: a steady trickle pools and expands to fill dusty gorges and flats, eventually swallowing the 1.2 million square kilometres of the Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre basin.
Following the flow are the native birds, who are yet to arrive in full numbers when I visit in July, but as I look down from my perch, I can already see dozens of white wings stretching out across the rippling surface.
Carter flies us over Silcrete Island, a boomerang-shaped island ringed by white salt that will soon be packed with over 200,000 pelicans.
'It'll be so dense with pelicans, they can't take off. They'll need to go in the water,' Carter says.
Steering the Cessna back to Williams Creek, Carter says locals are sceptical about whether the lake will beat the record-high flood of 1974, but more water is pouring in each day.
Nobody can say for sure how long the floodwater will stay, but the lake may start to shrink again in March. Until then, Carter is enjoying each flight as it comes.
'It never gets old, and every time you fly over there's something different,' he says.
'The position of the sun reveals new colours, or the wind ripples the water differently. If you're lucky, you might even see pelicans.'
The details
Getting there
There are no direct commercial flights to William Creek Aerodrome. Qantas, Virgin and Jetstar fly direct to Adelaide from all Australian capitals, with connecting flights to Coober Pedy with Rex Airlines. Car hire is available with Budget and Avis at Coober Pedy Airport. Make sure to tell them where you plan to drive so they can provide a suitable car. See qantas.com, jetstar.com, virginaustralia.com, rex.com.au, budget.com.au, avis.com.au
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