By Al Giles

A soft, strange grunting noise intruded on my hungover sleep and I woke up enough to wish that it would go away. It didn't, and whatever it was, it was coming closer still to the tent. The sun was just up and the thing out there was casting Jurassic Park shadows on the tent wall. Sticking my head outside, I discovered I was camped in a desert and there was a camel looking over the hang gliders and trike. Behind it were more camels. Behind them was the Red Centre where Burke and Wills took their last walk.

Billo had to be behind this, and he was, in the next tent in fact. Ever since he had to be shipped out of Cape York courtesy of the Flying Doctor, he'd slung the RFDS a few bob each year and followed up their fundraisers. This year's event was a weekend-long party for the 50th anniversary of the film 'Back of Beyond' starring Australia's very own Tom Kruse (yep), the Birdsville Postman, being shown in the same hall in the same town where it was first shown in 1954. This was at Marree, being the south end of the Birdsville Track, and Tom himself would be present. There was a 50th anniversary edition of the film on DVD, and the Royal Flying Doctor Service had suggested Billo come to the party and pick up his copy in person. What, drive 2000km each way to pick up a DVD? Oke, said Billo, and straight away the rest of us said we'd better come along and bring the hang gliders and trike so that he didn't get into any trouble.

As it happened, Lake Eyre was full for the first time in many years. The 'inland sea' sought by so many explorers following westward-flowing rivers is a saline sump, one of the lowest points in Oz, lower than sea level but usually dry like the country around it. I had wanted to see it for a long time and here was my chance - heavy rains in SW Queensland many months before meant that even South Lake Eyre was full, which happens once a generation. Aerotowing up over it in the Climax would be as good as it gets. JOD and Big were in for the trip as well, and Greg as cameraman made up the numbers.

Marree is neither big nor beautiful, but it was an oasis in the red desert surrounding it as we arrived on Saturday morning. Plumes of red dust rose from the roads into town (both of them) as the outback denizens gathered - we'd met a few already last night, where we'd camped on the Strzelecki Track. We set up the gliders on the edge of town as Billo warmed up the Rotax. Big stepped up first to have a tow, but footlaunch aerotow in hot still air is not his long suit. A nosepopper with weaklink break, then some exciting low level aerobatics ended with some minor bent metal - no great grief, but without spares Big was grounded, not a good state for a sparky. This confirmed the watchers' beliefs about hang gliding, and for the rest of the weekend we were greeted with that amused tolerance reserved for lunatics dangerous only to self.

JOD and I took tows over the town, and the emptiness of the Red Centre really struck home from the air. Flat red nothing disappeared into the heat haze in every direction, with salt lakes shimmering white here and there, and the red bulldust of the Birdsville Track floating high long after the 4WDs had arrived in town. (Soon after our trip to South Australia, a retired couple touring around Oz in their trike landed on a sand flat about 12km from Marree to look at some wild camels. They rolled their trike in the soft sand and even with GPS and walking after dark, were in a sorry state when they reached Marree. Anyone know the last GPS coordinates of Burke and Wills?) Planes started to arrive at the airstrip and we put the kites and trikes away as the party began. A tent city appeared around the few buildings of Marree, with camel rides alongside the beautifully restored blitzwagens and six-wheelers that Tom Kruze used to ferry the mail along the Birdsville Track, in the days when the 500km trip took two weeks, and sometimes three months. Over a thousand bushies were partying hard and it went all night, with two showings of 'Back of Beyond' and the barbie meals going as fast as the CWA girls could cook them, all profits to the RFDS. We proposed to the camel man that we attach a Climax to a rope and take a camel tow, but he wouldn't be in it.

Sundee saw us 100km along the Oodnadatta Track and setting up in white salt mud next to Lake Eyre South. The blue sky of Saturdee had been replaced by cool threatening bases and there was a feel of rain in the air. I set the altimeter at minus 40ft for takeoff - density altitude was on our side here - and followed JOD up behind Billo in the trike. We towed up through light rain and I noticed the climb rate dropped off as the wing got wetter; fortunately the Wizard wing on the Buzzard (Wuzzard? Bizard?) is also PX20, otherwise a bit of a step might have appeared in the rope as the Climax dropped into the propwash. (Apprentice! Go down to the aeroshop for a litre of propwash!) After releasing, the air was quite still and I drifted around several thousand feet above the lake edge, looking for what might be seen, which was not a lot. It was very pretty watching the rain fall in the lake from my eyrie, although there were almost no pelicans, just a sunken 4WD clearly visible through the water, where someone had driven too close as the lake filled. We landed back by the cars in still calm air and made the mistake of going paddling in the lake - it was highly saline and we were doing the Itchy and Scratchy dance long after it dried.

Arkaroola is a different place again. The landscape of the Flinders Ranges is one of tilted red rock strata flung thousands of feet out of the desert, and the airstrip is one of the few flat bits to be seen. Doug Sprigg, the owner/manager, had seen us at Marree the day before, and offered us the use of his strip and hangar. Floating around in the trike over these rocky ranges reminded me to do a little maintenance on the Rotax 532 sometime. Although it was cold and cloudy, there was lift to be had - later we found out there's a radioactive hot springs there, must have been the source of the upstuff on a socked-in day. Ah well, two heads are better than one - works for the Rotax 912 anyway.

You can't fly around the Flinders and not soar Wilpena Pound. The wind direction wasn't that good for the glider strips but that's no problem for a trike - we aerotowed out of a paddock after working out with the local joyflight blokes where they would and wouldn't be flying. Seen from the air with no cockpit around you, the Pound is just as speccy as Arkaroola's ranges, Lake Eyre's expanse and the flat emptiness of the Centre. Two days later, we were back in Newcastle with our DVD and gabbling to anyone who'd listen about flying over some of Australia's most magnificent landscapes.

Go, do it, have a look.