Heavy rains bring Queensland’s Channel Country to life

ABC NEWS (Australia)

In Queensland’s far west recent flooding has brought the channel country alive with a wave of wildflowers carpeting the desert. And as the tourism season kicks off in Birdsville, locals and tourists agree there's something special about this year.

Transcript

00:00 As far as the eye can see, the outback has become a carpet of green, the reward for a

00:07 channel country flood.

00:10 Oh mate, then that's when the magic starts.

00:15 A transformed terrain teeming with life.

00:21 And in this vast expanse, the best seat in the house is in the sky.

00:26 You wouldn't really believe that it was in the middle of the desert, all this water and

00:30 flood plains.

00:31 All the dormant seedlings that lay underneath that cracked clay pan just explode to life

00:37 so you get a whole, this abundance of colours, greenery, wildflowers shooting through.

00:44 Travelling by road to Birdsville is equally surprising.

00:50 You'll find publican Rob O'Hagan stationed behind the bar at the Batuda Hotel.

00:55 I've never noticed so many guanas and birdlife and the flowers everywhere, it's just growing

01:02 everywhere and so it's just something totally different from what we're used to seeing.

01:07 For Sydney sighter Bree Dixon, it wasn't the scenery she expected.

01:12 It's a bit of a mixture between red and green which is really cool to see, just obviously

01:15 two contrasting colours like that together.

01:18 While it's been a slow start to the tourist season, operators say there are squadrons

01:23 of pelicans to be seen.

01:25 I've never seen so many pelicans.

01:30 It doesn't go hand in hand with, among a theory, the Simpson Desert, that we've got pelicans

01:35 flying over the top and having a good feed on the Diamantina Crossing that's typically

01:41 dry.

01:42 Two months ago the area behind me was flooded but it wasn't from heavy rain that fell here.

01:48 Ex-tropical cyclone Kirili dumped hundreds of millimetres of rain, hundreds of kilometres

01:54 north of here.

01:55 The floodwaters then moved downstream through the Channel Country, eventually making their

02:00 way to South Australia into Kattytunda Lake Eyre.

02:04 The floodwaters have left feed and fat cows in its wake.

02:08 The cattle are amazed, they're happy.

02:10 The flies are annoying them but I think I'll take the flies with feed and no feed and no

02:16 flies.

02:17 For those planning a trip, bring a camera.

02:20 Because I don't think you're ever going to see it quite as pretty as what it is at the

02:22 moment.

02:23 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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