I write this
a day after coming home to Sydney from the Simpson Desert, the place I go to work
on the border of Queensland and the Northern Territory. I’m a biologist, a
desert ecologist to be exact.
Yesterday I stepped
out of our field vehicle, a very off-road worthy thing, after an unusually long
drive back. Something happened you wouldn’t expect in the Simpson. It rained.
It started
raining while we were in the desert. Rain is a little magical out there. Dusty,
yellow clumps of prickly spinifex grass change colour instantly and become
light green. The dust settles and the sand turns a deeper shade of red.
Burrowing frogs dig their way out to the surface. Birds fly in for both the
water and those frogs. The whole place comes alive.
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| Burrowing frogs emerging from the sand - Notaden nichollsi |
And then it
rained more. We started hearing about road closures on the radio, more every
day. Rivers that have been dry beds for years start flowing, usually straight
over the roads we needed to take to get out. We laughed about it at first and
carried on with our work, enjoying the conditions. We found ourselves stuck,
flooded in, and it felt like a great adventure!
When the day
we need to leave drew closer we got a little more serious. We all needed to be
places, meet people, teach classes, start the first day of a new job, catch
that plane home. Our real lives invaded the adventure of being stuck. Eventually
we drove out, not really knowing what we were getting ourselves into.
We got out
of the desert to the first town, the part we thought would be most tricky. We
thought we done it. But from there we were pushed further and further north due
to road closures. Keep in mind we were trying to go south, back to Sydney. In
far West Queensland towns are easily 200-300km apart. These detours were costing
us many hours.
After another
very wet night camping beside a flooded road full of frogs we conceded defeat –
quite grumpily.
We stopped
at the information centre of the nearest town we could reach for the latest
updates on the roads. A middle-aged lady beamed at us when we walked in. ‘How GRRREAT
is this rain?!’ I admit I raised an eyebrow and produced a frown at that.
It turned
out she and her husband own a cattle property. They had been waiting for this
rain for 3 years, struggling through that time to keep their cattle alive. She
told the sad stories of farmers who couldn’t manage the financial burden and resorted
to killing their livestock. While telling us her story the rain got even worse,
it was pouring down. She got so excited she started bouncing up and down, doing
a little rain dance behind the counter, hopping around in circles.
It lifted my
spirits and provided some welcome perspective. The rain was inconvenient for
our trip, our jobs and our appointments but it brought life and hope to others.
We continued our journey further north, racing the floods, eventually making it
to Sydney. 3000km, a day late and one teaching session missed. I think my
students will forgive me.
Pictures by Frank Bird
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