After rare flooding event, Aussies are flocking to our largest lake

No airport in the world has a lounge quite like William Creek. Every inch of the bar at the William Creek Hotel is plastered with scrawled signatures, police vests, hats, expired ID cards and licence plates from as far afield as Wyoming.

A taxidermised cane toad leaps out of a championship cup as a mounted buffalo head jealously watches on. A sign from the Australian Department of Defence warns trespassers will be prosecuted, but that doesn’t deter the men playing billiards or the family eating their burgers under it.

Comprising two buildings – the tin-roofed William Creek Hotel and a small office for charter flight operator Wrightsair – the tiny town, if you could even call it that, is a blip in the South Australian outback, nearly two hours’ drive on corrugated roads from Coober Pedy, nine if you’re driving from Adelaide.

Despite being so remote, the bar is heaving and the backpackers taking orders are hustling. The campground opposite the pub is full. All because 50 kilometres east of here, Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre – Australia’s largest lake – is flooding for just the fourth time in 160 years, turning an arid and crusty salt flat into a glittering oasis.

The lake only previously flooded in 2019, 2010 and 1974 – the latter still holds the record for the highest flooding event.

The rare event triggers one of Australia’s greatest wildlife displays, with hundreds of thousands of waterbirds ranging from native seagulls, swans and pelicans to far-flung species from China, Siberia and Antarctica migrating here to feast and breed.

How these distant species know the lake is filling remains an enduring ecological mystery.

Like the sandpipers and terns, I’ve come to Lake Eyre (also known as Kati Thanda to the Arabana people), for a bird’s-eye view of this stunning spectacle.

After downing my burger and pint at the hotel, I meet Wrightsair pilot Jaiden Carter next door for a private aerial tour.

It’s a cool 15 degrees outside, but our white four-seater Cessna 172 glows like a firebrand in the afternoon sun.

After a safety briefing, we’re wheels up and soaring over clay flats and dunes stubbled with kerosene grass and saltbush.

Within minutes, we encounter what looks like a vast inland sea at Halligan Bay Campground. Carter shares how record-breaking rainfall in Queensland in January and February created an “inland tsunami” that has slowly surged inland to Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre.

Satellite photos reveal a slow transformation: a steady trickle pools and expands to fill dusty gorges and flats, eventually swallowing the 1.2 million square kilometres of the Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre basin.

Following the flow are the native birds, who are yet to arrive in full numbers when I visit in July, but as I look down from my perch, I can already see dozens of white wings stretching out across the rippling surface.

Carter flies us over Silcrete Island, a boomerang-shaped island ringed by white salt that will soon be packed with over 200,000 pelicans.

“It’ll be so dense with pelicans, they can’t take off. They’ll need to go in the water,” Carter says.

Steering the Cessna back to Williams Creek, Carter says locals are sceptical about whether the lake will beat the record-high flood of 1974, but more water is pouring in each day.

Nobody can say for sure how long the floodwater will stay, but the lake may start to shrink again in March. Until then, Carter is enjoying each flight as it comes.

“It never gets old, and every time you fly over there’s something different,” he says.

“The position of the sun reveals new colours, or the wind ripples the water differently. If you’re lucky, you might even see pelicans.”

The details

Getting there
There are no direct commercial flights to William Creek Aerodrome. Qantas, Virgin and Jetstar fly direct to Adelaide from all Australian capitals, with connecting flights to Coober Pedy with Rex Airlines. Car hire is available with Budget and Avis at Coober Pedy Airport. Make sure to tell them where you plan to drive so they can provide a suitable car. See qantas.com, jetstar.com, virginaustralia.com, rex.com.au, budget.com.au, avis.com.au

Tour
Wrightsair has a range of aerial tours taking in Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre as well as the Anna Creek Painted Hills and Simpson Desert, starting from $390 a person for a 60-minute tour. See wrightsair.com.au

Stay
Williams Creek Hotel offers accommodation ranging from camping (sites from $20 a night) to en suite rooms (from $100 a night) and the Camel House, a self-contained two-bedroom cottage, from $395 a night. See williamcreekhotel.com

The writer travelled as a guest of the South Australian Tourism Commission. See southaustralia.com