Dorothea Mackellar got it spot on in her poem My Country when she described Australia as a land ‘ Of droughts and flooding rains’. In early 2026 record breaking rainfall from monsoonal downpours combined with floodwater from river runoff across Central Australia transformed the Lake Eyre Basin into a network of temporary lakes. This one at the base of Big Red sand dune near Birdsville cut off access to the QAA line crossing.