Yachties from around Australia will haul their boats across outback deserts to the famed inland sea for a unique regatta this month.
The Outback Spirit – Lake Eyre Yacht Club Regatta will be held for the first time since 2016 from April 16-19.
Officially known as Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, Lake Eyre is the thirteenth biggest lake in the world when full. It is also the lowest geographical point of the island nation at 15m below sea level.
The lake system in South Australia – believed by early European settlers to be home to an enormous inland sea – is about 500km from the coast and is usually dry as it only fills about four times a century.
The last time it was full was 1974 but water from local storms and wet season rains in outback Queensland are flowing to the lake through a network of rivers that drain into a basin covering a sixth of Australia – about the size of Spain.
This has prompted the Lake Eyre Yacht Club to organise its sixth regatta, which will include a series of yacht races and discovery expeditions through the network of channels, rivers and lakes in the vast, but temporary desert oasis.
The 2019 regatta will be held on a smaller waterway known as Cowarie Lakes as the huge expanse of Lake Eyre is difficult to access. While the Australian outback experiences severe heat for much of the year, day-time maximums in the region in April are usually about 30C.
Lake Eyre Yacht Club Commodore Bob Backway said water levels in the region in coming weeks would be at their highest since the early 1990s.
“There are maximum peak volumes in the rivers and there’s another flood that’s going to come down now,” he said.
“Originally we were going to have a race down the Warburton River but because of the size of the flood it became impossible.
“Now we’re going to the Cowarie Lakes, which is 2m deep, and we’ll have a camp there, we’ll have races each day and some days we’ll have exploration trips.
“This lake has some interesting parts in it so we’re going to explore.”
The discovery expeditions will potentially include eerie night-time adventures under a star-filled sky for the first time.
“It looks very beautiful reflected in the water at night. It’s like you’re floating in space,” Commodore Backway said.
The Lake Eyre Yacht Club has a membership of about 200 people from all over Australia and some from the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany.