00:04You're out in the middle of essentially what should be the dead, dry heart of Australia
00:08and suddenly there's just all this water.
00:12I don't think you'll see this again for quite a few decades.
00:16You might, but I think it'd be a very rare event.
00:20The myth of an inland sea lured 19th century European explorers into the heart of Australia.
00:27But where they found only desert, this year it's awash.
00:35How do you feel about seeing this every day of your workplace?
00:39Oh, it's a pretty good office. You wouldn't complain about it.
00:42Like just the changes and the colour and the patterns every day.
00:45Henry Reid Spinks is flying us over Katitanda Lake Eyre.
00:49It's getting close to capacity and it's teeming with life.
00:55The contrast here is incredible. We're on the edge of the Simpson Desert.
01:00But below us is such a vast volume of water.
01:06Katitanda is fed by Australia's inland rivers.
01:09It's the second year in a row water from the Northern Territory in Queensland has reached the lake.
01:15But this year it's been inundated with local rain too.
01:18In just four months, the weather station closest to the lake recorded more than 400 mils of rain.
01:25More than four times its average.
01:28Parts of the outback like William Creek have been underwater.
01:34It's kept Trevor Wright busy.
01:36From helping tourists with flat tyres to running scenic flights, he's been an outback fixture for three decades.
01:43And this is the best he's seen it.
01:46This is the first year I've actually had to use a lawn mower to cut the runway.
01:50We've never seen it before.
01:52So we spent half our time when it did dry up a bit cutting down the vegetation because it just
01:57grew so rapidly.
01:59Yunkan Jarrah man Bobby Hunter witnessed Katitanda's biggest year on record in the 1970s.
02:05This year might come close, but the lifelong stockman isn't complaining about the rain.
02:11We were just thankful to get it because it was so dry.
02:16Before the rain, the cattle didn't have much to eat.
02:19They probably was eating dust and living on imagination.
02:23After two years of drought, the rain comes as a welcome relief.
02:27But it does bring its own challenges.
02:30Flooding and damage to roads have cut stations and communities off for weeks on end.
02:39On Ellen Lichfield Station outside Maree, they've had record rains.
02:44The water moves very slowly, so it does mean that there's long stretches of time where the roads are cut
02:50off, where we can't get sort of basic supplies in and sort of everything goes to a bit of a
02:57standstill.
02:58After de-stocking during drought last year, Ellen's been able to bring cattle back onto the property.
03:04She says the country is looking good.
03:06I know it's very difficult with diesel and petrol prices being what they are, but would definitely encourage people to
03:13come out here and support the Outback communities and check it out because it's very, very rare that it looks
03:18this good.
03:20I hope the Outback Greening continues.
03:23Leah McLennan, ABC News, Catty Tundra Lake Eyre.
03:28Thank you very much.
03:28..
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