Our one day (6 hour) excursion “Flight to Lake Eyre”

Saturday 24^th March 2012:

We boarded a single engine, six seater plane with another couple and two pilots to fly with 'The Bush Pilots' from Hawker, a small town known as 'The Hub of the Flinders Ranges'. A spectacular bird's eye view was enjoyed looking down over our wonderful bush landscapes. The flight took us over the timeless landscape of one of the world's oldest mountain ranges, The Flinders Ranges, through and over the middle of Wilpena Pound (a large crater formed by erosion, millions of years ago, of the soft stone within the walls of the range). Flying around a height of 4,500 feet we followed the Heysen Range north flying over Leigh Creek open-cut coal mine, onto the Historic township of Maree at the junction of The Birdsville and The Oodnadatta Tracks, continued north over Muloorina Station and The Dingo Fence, Lake Eyre South before entering Lake Eyre North at Madigan's Gulf at the southern end of the main lake itself.

The flight gives one a full appreciation of the geography and remoteness of this vast and unique landscape.

Around the middle of the lake the flight turned west and descended to take a closer look at the islands and shoreline as we crossed out of the western shoreline the flight was towards our lunch stop at the historic William Creek Pub on Anna Creek Station, the largest operating cattle leasehold in the world. A legendary burger was a must and enjoyed!

After lunch the flight tracked south into the Woomera region to see the absolutely spectacular PAINTED HILLS, by any account a vision splendid of this timeless land. Homeward bound, back to Hawker, over Roxby Downs (BHP's Olympic Dam project-site of the largest Uranium deposit in the world and shortly to be the biggest hole in the world) the flight crossed diagonally over Lake Torrens, at 214klms long Lake Torrens is Australia's longest salt lake, then we continued on, landing safely back in Hawker.

The other couple with us on our flight were from the Brisbane area and unbeknown to us until we got chatting, were friends with friends of ours in Newcastle and had visited Newcastle prior to making their way to SA. As the saying goes there is only three degrees of separation!