Lake Eyre & William Creek

Knowing that the roads were still flooded we knew we wouldn’t be able to drive to or camp near Lake Eyre so we decided that the next best thing (maybe better) was to drive to William Creek – another town (only 3 ppl pop.) set up because of the Ghan railway and now exists because of its quirkiness and the small air field. We passed through the Dingo fence along the way – fence runs through QLD to WA to prevent dingoes travelling south into sheep country.



The flight over Lake Eyre was amazing. It is in flood at the moment and the hour we spent up in the air only took us to the south western corner (that’s how big it is) but it was spectacular to see the salt pan covered in water (only about half a metre deep) with bird life living around it. The area around the lake was very green and you could see where recent creeks had flooded and flowed into the lake. Part of this flight also took us over Anna Creek cattle station – the world’s biggest cattle station (about the size of Belgium) There will be lots of happy cows wondering around these parts for the next couple of months.




That evening was spent in William Creek Hotel, drinking some South Australian coopers, XXXX beer and talking to drunken people on tours and the locals (yes all 3 were present – 2 run the pub and the other owns the planes & pub). Vanessa happened to be wearing her Balmain Waterpolo t-shirt which has a logo on the front with wings (not sure why) and a drunk woman on the mail run tour came up to her and said how it was fantastic she was doing her pilot hours up here, ‘good thing to do for you young ones’. Vanessa just smiled and said ‘yes, it’s great’. The pub owners and plane owner were great to talk to – the pub has only just been taken over by them - 5 months ago. It would be a great place to own as it has a lot of history and character (every wall and ceiling in covered in hats, business cards, identification cards and photos of people who have travelled through)