Aerial View

Innamincka township and the Cooper Creek

Got chatting to a chopper pilot who stopped by the pub. He landed across the place to pick up some mates who were checking out the road conditions around the area. He was kind enough to give us a quick ride around. Although it was short, we managed to get a great aerial view of our home for the last few months and its vast nothing.

Taking off

Desert Oasis

Diverting the flow to save the pub

The last time the town had decent rain was Christmas eve 2013. Over the past week, weather forecasters have been warning of rain in all parts of the country including the Outback. For SA, the possibility of one in 30 years rainfall.

The first storm hit on Saturday. From then on, we had on and off storm cells for the next 4 days, resulting in approximately total rain of 120mm. This closed most roads across the Outback and had dry rivers and creeks flowing. The Strzelecki Creek, which was boned dry was flowing swiftly. This was where we launched our kayaks and paddled out to the Cooper Creek, then upstream to the causeway. The overflowing causeway was where I caught my first Yellowbelly.

Hard at work

Dinner!

The sunny and hot weather returned eventually and its back to desert condition, including the creek which we kayak just a couple of days ago. The rain did do some damage to tracks and roads around the area. On the flip side, we get to see green grass starting to pop up.

Paddling down Strzelecki creek

Table Mountain

How many cars can you spot?

We have seen a series of hills when out driving a couple of times. Found out that they were part of the Merninie Range. We decided to try walking up one of the hills. With another workmate, CB, we drove to the area called Table Mtn. Having a 4wd is useful since the hill is off the beaten track. It did not take us long to get to the top at just over 700m. Got a bird-eye view of the area.

On the way back, we saw our first lizard, which unfortunately we ran over. We doubled back and saw that it was still alive. Hope its not injured.