Heavy rains bring Queensland’s Channel Country to life
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.
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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]