Gibber plains

The gibber plains between Coober Pedy and Woomera are covered in very low saltbush and other small shrubs. Is it always like this? They've had some good rains here the last couple of years so it could be unusual. At a glance the vegetation appears a uniform dark grey but actually the colours are varied and subtle, and many of the shrubs are flowering as well. We stopped for a coffee break in a group of sheoaks and sat and watched Budgerigars, Red-capped Robins, Grey-crowned Babblers, Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes and woodswallows all around us and threw crumbs to the ants at our feet.

As we neared Pimba we saw the first of a series of salt lakes, the water brilliant in the sunshine. Those of you who have travelled this road, and some will have done it many times, will know these lakes and the gibber in various guises - all equally beautiful I'm sure. And we crossed the one and only railway line, the one that goes to Perth and branches off to Darwin. The scale of the landscape is humbling.