Archive for the ‘News’ Category
August 18th, 2010 by Lunch
There is nothing better than cruising around the middle of Australia checking out the incredible scenes below of wild life, bird life and the massive amount of water that has ebbed, meandered and flowed through many different pathways and terrains to get to Lake Eyre. And it doesn’t get any better than doing so in the beautiful Beech 18. (see pictured above)
By popular demand, we are putting together another 3 day/2 night all inclusive scenic safari aboard the Beech 18 ex Adelaide on the 17th of September, with only 4 seats available for $2990.00 per person.
We depart from Parafield Airport out of Adelaide to Port Augusta- Wilpena Pound- Arkaroola- Innamincka- The Dig Tree- Birdsville- Goyders Lagoon-Warburton Creek- Lake Eyre North- William Creek- Oonnaddata -Dalhousie Springs- Painted Hills- Coober Pedy- Olympic Dam- Woomera- Pt.Augusta- Parafield. For full details and itinerary contact us asap.
Check out this faultless image below, by The Sentimental Bloke
. This is how stunning the views are and Peter does certainly capture the moment!
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Posted by Lunch Tags: Birdsville Pub, Coongie Lakes, Cooper Creek, Dalhousie Springs, Flinders Ranges, Goin Off Safaris, Goyders Lagoon, Lake Eyre, Lake Eyre scenic flights, lake Eyre Tours, Peter MacDonald, The Sentimental Bloke, Warburton Groove, William Creek Hotel, Wilpena Pound
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August 6th, 2010 by Lunch
Lake Eyre actually consists of two lakes, Lake Eyre North (8 430 km²) and Lake Eyre South (1 260 km²), connected by Goyder Channel which has a length of 15 km.
The Lake Eyre basin is massive! It covers more than 1 million km², or 1/6th of the continent, mainly in Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory. Globally, the basin is one of the largest internal drainage systems.
Below are a couple of photographs that best illustrate just how vast this inland sea really is ( Thanks again to ” The Sentimental Bloke” ).When over 4m deep the Lake is no more salty than the sea and salinity increases as the water evaporates with saturation occurring at about 500mm depth. The Lake takes on a “pink” hue when saturated due to the presence of beta-carotene pigment caused by the algae Dunaliella salina.
For our current flight specials and itinerary’s please contact us.
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Posted by Lunch Tags: Coongie Lakes, Goin Off Safaris, Goyders Lagoon, Lake Eyre, Lake Eyre filling, Lake Eyre scenic flights, lake Eyre Tours, Peter MacDonald, The Sentimental Bloke
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July 26th, 2010 by Lunch
**SPECIAL DEAL**. We have 6 seats available for a fully guided, amazing 3 day/ 2night Supreme Scenic Safari to the spectacular floodwaters of South Australia’s far north.
Departing from Parafield Airport out of Adelaide, the flight plan includes Port Augusta- Wilpena Pound- Arkaroola- Innamincka- The Dig Tree- Birdsville- Goyders Lagoon-Warburton Creek- Lake Eyre North- William Creek- Oonnaddata -Dalhousie Springs- Painted Hills- Coober Pedy- Olympic Dam- Woomera- Pt.Augusta- Parafield.
We are looking to fill another 4 seats and we are offering these at a specially discounted price of $2990.00. This includes Parafield Airport transfers from the Adelaide CBD, 3 days flying, 2 nights accommodation, 2 breakfasts, a 3 course dinner and entrance to the Birdsville Historical Museum.
Departure is the 17th September 2010. Please contact us for further details and itinerary.
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Posted by Lunch Tags: Arkaroola, Birdsville Pub, Coober Pedy, Coongie Lakes, Cooper Creek, Dalhousie Springs, Goin Off Safaris, Goyders Lagoon, Innamincka, Lake Eyre, Lake Eyre scenic flights, lake Eyre Tours, Marree, Painted Desert, Warburton Groove, William Creek Hotel, Wilpena Pound
Posted in Lake Eyre Tours, News | 1 Comment »
July 19th, 2010 by Lunch
Presumably science still hasn’t come up with the answer as to how these pelicans know when the Coongie Lakes fill with water.
Since it happens only once every decade or longer it’s hard to know how ‘they’ know.
Even birds in Russia get on the wing and head down for a paddle and a bit of mating.
All that aside, it’s even harder to figure out how they can come back to the same island in the lakes to breed.
I mean, when they left, they weren’t much more than chicks and have cruised around our coasts for ten years or so.
This is the same place that The Sentimental Bloke, Peter MacDonald photographed in 1999. Click here to look at the island back then (it’s the third photo down). It doesn’t look much like the same place. Yet they know.
Soon, if not already, the larger of the two islands will be crammed with pelicans and not long after that there will be almost as many chicks ready to start the cycle all over again. Its an amazing,unknown piece of nature that can only be described as “Pelican Business”!
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Posted by Lunch Tags: Coongie Lakes, Goin Off Safaris, Lake Eyre, Lake Eyre filling, Lake Eyre scenic flights, lake Eyre Tours, Pelicans breeding on Coongie Lakes, Peter MacDonald, The Sentimental Bloke
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July 13th, 2010 by Lunch
As reported on the TV screens late last week, it is now official that in South Australia’s Lake Torrens, there has been a colony of an estimated 150,000 native Banded Stilts that have bred more than 200,000 chicks!!!!
This is something else! The long beaked wading birds have trekked from their coastal habitat of South Australia’s, Coorong coastline, to breed in Lake Torrens when rain turns the salt lakes into a “shrimp brine soup”!
Up until recently, the total population of these “outback flamingos” was thought to be only 200-300,000 in the world, so this is a significant event. Full report. The Sentimental Bloke, Peter Macdonald also posted an excellent blog on this breeding event back at the end of May, which make good reading and also some great photos before the lake filled.
Our new 3 day Flinders Ranges/Lake Eyre Scenic Tours, takes you directly over Lake Torrens and you can see this colony plus a lot, lot more throughout your day in the air on this trip. For more information, please contact us.
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Posted by Lunch Tags: Flinders Ranges, Goin Off Safaris, Lake Eyre, Lake Eyre filling, Lake Eyre scenic flights, Lake Torrens, Largest ever Banded Stilts colony, Peter MacDonald, The Sentimental Bloke
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July 13th, 2010 by Lunch
It’s almost impossible to convey just how much water is in the Coongie Lakes at the moment.
It just goes on an on, almost as far as they eye can see in every direction. Hundreds of islands amid a thousand lakes.
Hard to imagine this is a formidable desert most of the time and at the time of this post, we have had confirmation that Lake Eyre is covered with water! Go to Lake Eyre tours for more info. Thanks again to The Sentimental Bloke for the stunning images.
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Posted by Lunch Tags: Coongie Lakes, Goin Off Safaris, Lake Eyre, Lake Eyre filling, Lake Eyre scenic flights, lake Eyre Tours, Peter MacDonald, The Sentimental Bloke
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July 8th, 2010 by Lunch
Goyders Lagoon again & the Sentimental Bloke wasn’t exaggerating when he spoke about the millions of streams going into Goyders Lagoon.
The vision from the plane is unreal with endless miles of flooded plains.
Aircraft is your best mode of transport here at the moment; not much chance of getting down this track, or indeed any others around here for long while! Check out our Lake Eyre Tours for more info.
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Posted by Lunch Tags: Goin Off Safaris, Goyders Lagoon, Lake Eyre, lake Eyre Tours, Peter MacDonald, The Sentimental Bloke
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July 4th, 2010 by Lunch
It may be fresh on the land at the moment but out at the Neptune Island’s off Port Lincoln, it is red hot with Great White shark activity.
The start of the winter season has been excellent and up to 8 different sharks have been seen daily, with plenty of action from both the boat and of course, in the underwater protective shark cage. In a world exclusive, the ocean floor cages are really proving to be a big hit for those that are certified divers, not only to see these predators scan the ocean’s bottom, but to view the massive rays and other schools of fish. It really is incredible!
Tags have been implanted in a number of sharks in recent weeks to be able to track their movements. “Marine” is a 3.2 feisty little female (see pictured bottom left) which has just been implanted with CSIRO acoustic tag.
Other regular Great Whites that have been seen recently are Mrs.Moo- a 4.5m female, Moo – 4.3m male, Kallel- 4m male (see very bottom) and also some smaller sharks such as Punk-a 2.8m female, Ropey, 3.5 female plus 2 other large females which haven’t been named as yet. With all these females around, Moo and Kallel must be in their element, but as they are regular habitats of the Neptune’s, they will know that “Jonny” is about to make an appearance any time now!
Jonny, pictured bottom right, is a very big male who historically appears about now & hangs in the area for usually 2-3 months and certainly makes his presence felt! Kallel is another shark that is enormously popular and is renowned as the most photographed Great White by the way he presents himself to the camera’s & his inquisitive nature.
The season is shaping up to be a belter & we have some great offers for the month of July. We have availabilities for 3 different, 4 night/3 day trips for a special half price deal of $1500 per person. Departure dates are July 5th-9th, July 15th-19th and July 19th- 23rd. Contact us for more details.
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Posted by Lunch Tags: Goin Off Safaris, Great white shark activity, Great White Shark Diving, Neptune Islands, Pt.Lincoln, Shark Cage Diving, shark specials
Posted in News, Shark Cage Diving | 2 Comments »
July 4th, 2010 by Lunch
Goyder Lagoon, part of the Strzelecki Desert in the far north eastern part of South Australia – a million streams, large and small that have turned a once dry desert into hundreds of square kilometres of rich green landscape.
This really is quite remarkable & in this image by The Sentimental Bloke, you can actually see the water flowing at a rapid rate, on the bottom left hand corner of the picture. To see this and loads more check out our Lake Eyre Tours.
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Posted by Lunch Tags: Goin Off Safaris, Goyders Lagoon, Lake Eyre, Lake Eyre scenic flights, lake Eyre Tours, The Sentimental Bloke
Posted in Lake Eyre Tours, News | 1 Comment »
June 30th, 2010 by Lunch
The Warburton River just before it enters Lake Eyre which Pete MacDonald is using to illustrate a recent question that came via email about what sort of fish are in Lake Eyre?
The Warburton is fresh water flowing into Lake Eyre which is very salty. So Salty that freshwater fish can’t live in it for very long.
The fish in the Warburton, if they continue downstream will be short-lived.
However the Coongie Lakes is teeming with Callope also known as Yellowbelly or Golden Perch which is what attracts the masses of birdlife to the Lakes. To see the this & lots more go to our Lake Eyre Tour packages which are currently available.
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Posted by Lunch Tags: Coongie Lakes, Lake Eyre, Lake Eyre filling, Lake Eyre scenic flights, lake Eyre Tours, Peter MacDonald, The Sentimantal Bloke, Warburton River
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There is nothing better than cruising around the middle of Australia checking out the incredible scenes below of wild life, bird life and the massive amount of water that has ebbed, meandered and flowed through many different pathways and terrains to get to Lake Eyre. And it doesn’t get any better than doing so in the beautiful Beech 18. (see pictured above)
. This is how stunning the views are and Peter does certainly capture the moment!
