Birdsville by Evan McHugh

Author:Evan McHugh
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857965561
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-02-13T05:00:00+00:00

Every six weeks the Royal Flying Doctor Service flew in to provide a medical consultation service at the Birdsville Clinic. A plane was chartered for the purpose and after he’d delivered the doctor, the pilot usually spent the day twiddling his thumbs waiting until the doctor finished seeing patients. On his visit in mid-July, pilot Philip Owens tired of twiddling.

‘Does anyone want to go for a fly to see the floodwaters?’ he asked.

Neal and Ruth Ramm (a retired couple who were caretaking the Old Birdsville Hospital), Lyn and I leapt at the chance. All we had to do was pay for the fuel and Philip would take us anywhere we wanted to go.

Phillip, an older pilot who’d been flying in the outback for years, headed north-west for Adria Downs and the lake Dalene Brook had told me about – Lake Muncoonie. As soon as we took off, we could see that there was still water everywhere, even though it was many weeks since rain had fallen. It was lapping at the dunes. Gibber plains were dotted with pools. In places billabongs were surrounded by silver tendrils of water that snaked outwards through rich herbage.

We flew at low altitude for 100 kilometres, snapping photographs the whole way. Then we started peering into the distance, trying to see the lake. As it turned out, there was no way you could miss it, and in the distance we could see something green.

As we flew in over Muncoonie, we saw that the floodwaters had almost completely evaporated and the vegetation was coming up thick and lush. The lake was, as Dalene had said, grass from one side to the other – thousands of hectares of it. The edges were surrounded by coolabahs and red dunes. The lake was as unexpected as finding an oasis on the moon.

Beside Lake Muncoonie, another lake, Selicia, was golden brown. It still showed signs of where they’d been cutting hay just a few months before. Hay in the Simpson Desert! Below us the grassy plains were dotted with fat Hereford cattle. Up in the plane every impression I’d had of the Channel Country was in disarray. Once again, everything I thought I knew was turned on its head.

Seeing such giant flood plains also made it clear how floodwaters from a river system, in this case the Georgina/Eyre Creek/Mulligan, could be swallowed whole. Lakes Muncoonie and Selicia must take billions of litres to fill, but they were only two of many.

From Muncoonie we turned north-east and followed Eyre Creek past the lonely outpost of Tomydonka Waterhole, on Glengyle Station, then through the dry claypans and dark belts of lignum surrounding Lake Mipia and Lake Koolivoo. Beyond them was the vivid green of Lake Machattie, a corner of which was still under water. It was dotted with cattle and emus. Some of the cattle were dead. Philip, who also owned a cattle station near Longreach, couldn’t tell us whether they’d died from eating something poisonous or from something that caused bloating. He just said ruefully, ‘That’s cattle for you.

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