Sailing on Pink Oil
Lake Eyre.
Photo: Mike Wilkins
ADELAIDE – They call it sailing on pink oil.
So salty is the Lake Eyre basin that even when the water reaches a metre deep it remains thick and heavy, it still crystallizes around anything that breaks the surface.
And when the floods come, the shimmering pink hue spreads far into the distance, engulfing thousands of square kilometres in South Australia’s north and bringing life to the normally parched, barren landscape.
As commodore of the Lake Eyre Yacht Club, surely one of Australia’s most optimistic sporting organisations, Bob Backman has been tracking the progress of the water that has steadily wended its way down the Diamantina and Georgina rivers after the deluge across much of Queensland.
