My first experience of Lake Eyre was in 1988 as a member of the team of ‘Expedition True Desert’, which was initiated by the Australian and New Zealand Scientific Exploration Society (ANZES) in conjunction with CSIRO. It was Australia’s first expedition team made up entirely of women, and its brief was to carry out a wide-ranging botanical survey in Australia’s most arid zone – the Lake Eyre Basin and the lower Simpson Desert.

 

During this journey I was aware that we were travelling through the traditional land of many Aboriginal groups. In later research I found the reports of anthropologists who had worked in the areas recording many of the details of the languages, stories and traditions of these people.

 

I have returned to Lake Eyre a number of times since to collect fragments and specimens for my work and to experience again the unique character of this place, its antiquity, its vastness and its incomparable feeling of space and light. Each visit holds some surprise, but whether it is a spectacular sea, a shimmering wilderness of salt or a mirage world, Lake Eyre is always visually breathtaking.