Lake Eyre isn’t all pinks and blues and silver salt.

At the top of the main lake and the Goyder Lagoon where some water is flowing in from the Warburton River, it’s quite muddy but there is an abundance of birds.

The pelicans stand out because of their numbers and the apparent ease with which they can glide just above the water’s surface.

However there’s cormorants and black swans. sea gulls, banded stilts and ducks to be seen as well.

There appears to be even more in the Coongie Lake system where the water is fresh and abundant fish to feed on.

This makes an interesting contrast from the last few photos…….

Goyder Lagoon, that rich oasis in the desert is flooding once again after the recent rains that have affected so much of the Flinders Ranges and Outback.

The lagoon lies about 80 kilometres south west of Birdsville on the South Australian-Queensland border and is fed by the Diamintina River.

Its lush green landscape interwoven with hundreds of thousands of fingers of floodwater is always an impressive sight in these wet conditions.

Camera Details: Canon 5D Mk 2 with a 24-70mm f2.8 L series lens shot at f6.3, 1/640 sec, ISO 200. Why f6.3 – mainly to get the shutter speed up high to stop the vibration and speed of the plane coming into effect.

Overshadowed by the vastness of Lake Eyre, Goyder Lagoon, south of Birdsville misses some of the attention it richly deserves.

Goyder Lagoon, wedged between  the formidable Simpson and Sturt Stony deserts, is the catchment area for the  Diamantina  and Georgina Rivers when they bring floodwaters from western Queensland.

When this happens it becomes a vast plain of vibrant green and a myriad of water channels.

Eventually, as they are doing now,  the waters flow into Lake Eyre.

The Lagoon is quite full at the moment but the levels are beginning to drop.

It’s the rain……

And there’s plenty coming through.

It’s falling on the plain,

almost weekly.

Turning sand and clay pans, too

into works of art completely.

Goyder Lagoon, south west of Birdsville.

Strewth, C.J. Dennis would turn in his grave!

Goyder Lagoon, Central Australia – a million streams, large and small that have turned a once dry desert into hundreds of square kilometres of rich green landscape.

It’s the Goyder Lagoon and the floodwaters from the Diamantina River are creating millions of large and small fingers infiltrating into every part of the lagoons rich green vegetation.

Watching from the air, the colours and patterns change constantly…..nature playing the abstract artist to perfection.

Other pictures of Goyder Lagoon, south of Birdsville.

Goyder Lagoon – a real contrast to the seemingly endless salt of Lake Eyre. The tentacles of water that pervade this swamp that’s south of Birdsville just go on and on.

Currently the most outstanding feature is the strong, rich, almost iridescent green colour that stretches for just about as far as the eye can see.

Goyder Lagoon is fed by the Diamantina River and sometimes if it fills, the overflow runs into Lake Eyre on it’s eastern shore – eventually meeting waters of the Warburton coming from the north.

It’s not hard to see why the early European explorers, Edward Eyre, John Stuart, George Goyder and others were looking for an inland sea.

Flying over it though it’s hard to imagine how they made it through such inhospitable terrain without the convenience of modern vehicles and equipment.

Canon 5D Mk 1, Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8L USM lens , f16, 1/320 ISO 400 AWB and f16 1/400 ISO 400, AWB. Unable to avoid refections in the first image.