Mon 21st & Tues 22nd April, 2014: Coongie Lakes National Park

This morning the group spilt up as some of the crew needed to get back to Rawnsley a park and collect their vans to go home, others wanted to go to Arkaroola on the way back to Rawnsley and we wanted to go out to Coongie Lakes National Park with Cindy and Russ before they headed back to Newcastle.

We drove the 100 odd km out to Coongie Lakes and found a great spot on the lakeside admist the sand dunes. 

Here are some of the locals we encountered along the drive out to Coongie a Lakes -  

We set up camp and spent the afternoon just languishing beside the lake watching the birdlife and relaxing in this remote and beautiful location. 

We had our happy hour watching the changing light of the sun setting over the lake

And some of us took "selfies" - with the sunset background!!!

The next morning we awoke to the most beautiful sunrise of our trip so far. It is just stunning!! It just blew us away!!!

We were up early so we headed off for a walk around to the other side of the lake that we had been looking over to the previous afternoon.

It was a lovely relaxing walk and we were able to check out all the other campsites further round the shoreline.

The lakes are still filling from water further up the river system - we could actually stand and watch the rivulets of waters snaking there way across this dry section of the lake. It was fascinating to be able to watch this event in micro - as this is what happens I. The channel,country when they get big rains up north.

We were able to get a better look at the large nest in the tree that we had been looking at from the other side of the lake yesterday evening - it seems deserted at the moment - bit it was fascinating to check out the actual composition of the nest.

We could now look back over to the the side of the lake at our campsite

Once we came back from our walk we languished a bit more in this relaxing landscape and then decided to pack up in the late morning and head back into Innamincka. We would have liked to stay another night here - but going back to Innamincka meant that for both us and Cindy & Russ our journey tomorrow would be that 110 km shorter.