St George, Mitchell Road suggests a land of drought and flooding rains

The contrast between now and the last year of the drought (a few years ago) is incredible, especially on the Mitchell to St George Road. The drought saw the landscape almost completely devoid of grasses and herbage, with trees on their "last legs". Splattered with the bodies of 'roos, the road attracted feral pigs and wedge-tailed eagles to feast on the carcasses that littered the bitumen. It was not a pretty sight.

Now -- at the end of November 2010 -- knee-high, emerald-green grasses clothe the soil, and trees hang heavy with new foliage. The narrow black bitumen road snakes its way south, with roadside markers suggestive of floods, and the earth, in places, such a vivid orange-red colour, you 'd think someone had painted it. This is truly outback Australia; this is a landscape I'm reluctant to leave..