Wow what a day. We woke early for our 8am flight over Lake Eyre; it was a beautiful sunny day, blue skies, and no wind. We were booked in for a 1hr flight, we were waiting out the front of Wright Air with some of the other passengers doing different flights, we were the only ones booked in for the 1 hr flight. Trevor the boss called Chris and I in and said he could do us a special deal for an extra $50 each he could put us on the 2hr flight, we jumped at it. It was easier for him, than putting another plane up for just 2 people, so worked out best for both parties. We were thrilled to bits, the 2hr one gets us out further into the lake and right up to the mouth where the rivers enter the lake.
I was a wee bit nervous as it was a small plane, 7 seater, the pilot was only 21 one and to top it off a KIWI. Take off was smoother than I expected and the flight in general was pretty smooth. It was awesome to be up there, looking down on the flat earth below, you really get to see how little vegetation there really is up there, as we approached the Lake we could see the water, wow. It seemed we were nearly at it with our walk yesterday, and in fact 48 hrs early and we would have been walking in water. Lake Eyre is tidal so if we were there when the tied was in we would have seen water from land.
We went further into the mouth of the river; we followed the river upstream for a while before turning back towards the lake once more. The best bits were seeing the water coming in from the river and the first sight of the water on the lake.The flight took us over the lake, passed several islands with Pelicans nesting, we could see them clearly from the air, as we got further up the lake the water became muddier where the water was running into the lake. We were got a bird’s eye view on some birds flying; wow it was so exciting, and so breathtaking to see the expanse of the lake. It is only at 4% capacity and the water is covering 40% of it. They expect the capacity to reach 7% and covering 50%, with it peaking in June or July. They also expect the water start to disappear Oct/Nov.
After the flight we headed towards Marree, stopping at a few ruins on the way and the Mound Springs. Which are hot springs on these funny mounds, really strange, these mounds are surrounded by flat ground for miles. We also stopped at Lake Eyre south for a brief look.After a little while I did start to feel a wee bit sick in my tum, my tum didn’t like it when he banked back around to give us another look and at one stage when we were coming into land the plane did a big drop, tum did a loop with that one. The landing was very smooth though. The whole flight was really fun and it was so great to see the water on Lake Eyre.
The road from William Creek to Cowards Springs, is very gravelling, we were warned by several people it was not a good road and was pretty rough. A well place rock can do a bit of damaged and we had a couple of well place rocks. The gravel was being thrown up underneath the van; it put a hole in the white water waste pipe, so there is no point us putting a hose on that any more Gravel also cut the cable ties on the A frame that hold the wires that runs from the car to the van to charge the batteries while we are driving. The wire dragged on the gravel and got cut up a bit, Chris is not sure if he can fix that on the road yet. And a really well place rock hit a T piece between the 2 water tanks and we lost the rest of the water in our tanks. Thankfully we have the water in the tank in the car. We are able to plug a hose into the van from that tank and pump it in while we use it, but not put it into the van tanks. We have to pick up a T piece tomorrow. Because of this we pushed on and drove to Leigh Creek tonight, so we are closer to civilizations and parts. We didn’t pull in until nearly 8pm so we are a little worn out. So glad to be off the gravel road and onto this black stuff, so smooth.