A land of drought and flooding rains

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains....

We are seeing this country as it has not been seen in decades.  The rains have come to northern Queensland in a big way and the waters are working their way down Cooper Creek toward the Murray, causing floods wherever their path crosses.  It has been raining in places that haven't seen rain for over 10 years.  It's an exciting but complicated time to be travelling across Australia.

The really exciting thing is the life that seems to have sprung from nowhere.  In the Flinders Ranges the locals told us that we were priveleged to witness the country as it has not been seen since 1974 (even to me that seems like a long time ago).  The hills are green, the creeks are filled with water, there are wildflowers growing out of seemingly impossible places, and wherever you look the place is teaming with life - tadpoles, birds, flies (sadly) and a plague of the biggest grasshoppers you have ever seen.

We're back in Alice Springs (more on that later) and they have had 18" of rain since Christmas - almost unheard of.  The red centre looks like someone has thrown a green carpet over it.  It's a completely different place to the town we visited in November.  Green and lush - but also hot and muggy (in November the humidity was 2%, today it's 74%) and teaming with more of those giant grasshoppers, flies and mosquitoes.

And here's some late breaking and exceedingly exciting news......it rained heavily overnight here in Alice and this morning the Todd River is an absolute torrent.  It was an amazing sight.  Yesterday the river bed was dry and dusty - all the previous rains having evaporated in the heat.  This morning I swear it looked like the Congo River it was flowing so fast.  They say you aren't a local here until you've seen the Todd River flow....could this be our new home?

All this rain has affected our plans, and we're currently having to operate one day at a time.  We had intended to go up either the Birdsville or Strezleki Track SE from the Flinders and into Queensland - but both tracks are closed due to flooding and expected to stay that way for weeks.  So we decided to head SW on the Oodnadatta Track and then north from there - meaning we will miss Queensland altogether.  We did that trip in a very short 2 days with only an overnight in Oodnadatta (which has NOT improved with rain, still a hell hole, just a hell hole with alot more flies!)  Turns out that the Oodnadatta Track was closed 2 days after we got off due to sudden rains.  I can't imagine the horror of being stuck in Oodnadatta waiting for the roads to dry out.

Having changed our plan, we recalibrated and decided to head to the Gulf of Carpenteria from Alice for a little adventure and fishing.  Looks like we will now have to shift to plan C - as that area was hit by Tropical Cyclone Paul last week and doesn't look like the roads will be navigable.  So we're staying put here for a week of so while we figure out what to do next.

The water has also added to our own small adventures.  When we first got to the Alice area we headed out to the West Macdonnell Ranges for a couple of days.  Dennis and I got up early on the first morning to do the Ormiston Pound walk - a very popular walk billed as a medium 3-hour walk.  We got to the trailhead and there was a big warning sign advising that due to flooding the track was now only suitable for "very fit and agile walkers" and there was a "possibility that you may need to swim in parts".  The new GI-Joe-Dennis poo-pooed the warning - "if we run into water we can always turn around" was the decision.  Needless to say we did run into water - 2.5 hours into the walk.  With the choice of turning around and walking all the way back or getting a bit wet the choice seemed obvious - so we forged ahead.  I went first and any idea I had that I was going to be able to wade across quickly went by the wayside as the water was almost immediately over my head.  I was OK swimming at first but then my backpack started to fill with water and get heavier and heavier.  I was really starting to panic a bit when I finally got to the edge and was able to grab onto a rock ledge.  Meanwhile Dennis is sputtering on the other side and I'm asking myself how the hell I'm going to tell Rose that I drowned her son.  But he regained his breath and pressed on and somehow managed to edge his way around the side without actually having to swim.  We both escaped unscathed, scrambled up to a trail higher up and returned to camp seriously buggered and down one camera!   (By the way, the picture on the left is the LAST picture to be taken by our small camera.)

On the subject of adventure I must also report that we managed to get bogged again - and once again had to be rescued by good samaritans.  I realise that reports of us getting bogged are now getting to be old news, but this occasion was momentous as DENNIS WAS DRIVING.  As a result we are witnessing a complete change of attitude in Dennis.  He has now decided that getting bogged is just "part of the process" and could happen to anyone.....interesting!?

The excitement of the rains and flooding has somewhat overshadowed the report on the Flinders so let me back track a bit.  I couldn't recommend the Flinders area more highly - it is simply a stunning part of Australia.  We spent almost 3 weeks in the area which stretches north from the flat, agricultural and quite green areas near Melrose, to the rocky, harsh Outback territory near Leigh Creek.  We spent most of the time on 4WD trips or walking and enjoyed exploring the diverse landscape.

One of the real highlights of our time in the Flinders was a 2 night stay at Wirrealpa Station, where we had a chance to meet Warren and Barbara who own and run the station.  They were incredibly hospitable and interesting people and we both learned alot about life on a station.  What struck me the most was the realisation that station life seems to be reaching an end - it's simply no longer a viable way for independent families to make a sustainable living.  We saw this in northern NSW and we were seeing it again in the Flinders.  Warren's family has been on that land for 4 generations.  When he was growing up the property had 20 or so musterers, farm hands and labourers.  Now it's just Warren and Barbara, working over 600 square miles of property.  The drought has meant that they can no longer afford labourers - but also the mining boom has ensured that no affordable labour is available even if you could afford it.  Like so many others they are grappling with the dilemna of how to pass the farm onto their sons.  My heart goes out to the people on the land in this country.  More and more they are realising that the land cannot give their children a sustainable life.....yet it is what they have known and loved all their lives.  I might mention too that whilst the rain is very welcome for people like Warren and Barbara, the cost of livestock means that the only way they can get their numbers back to sustainable levels is to work hard to breed from their existing herds.  That means that they need at least 3 years of good rains.  So the drought isn't over for them yet.

Over to Dennis now for more on the wet and, of course, the golf report!

Mike Hall has termed this part of our trip "Survivor" in a telephone conversation about the latest adventures.  Not only is the wet effecting us and the insects, the vehiiles are now getting some repairs and servicing to ensure we continue relatively trouble free. Yesterday I played golf at Alice Springs with a few of the locals.  One guy, Murray, has lived here all his life and told great stories of when there were 150 people in the town, now its more like 30,000:  talk about population strategies.  This is the part of the trip that I really like as I have written before, its meeting great people with lives so individual that you don't come across living in the city.

From here we go further North heading to Darwin (if it ever stops raining) to do some Barra fishing amongst the crocodiles, Mike may be right, this is Survivor!  All great fun and for my kids, Dad will take care.

To all of the readers of the blog keep those comments coming, we love hearing from you.