Beyond the western horizon lies a geography at once strange and ancient — the Channel Country.

It forms part of the Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre drainage basin, fed by the ephemeral rivers and streams of the Georgina, Diamantina, Cooper Creek and Eyre Creek. For thousands of years this country has been home to the Yandruwandha, Yawarrawarrka, Dieri, Wangkangurru and Arrabunna peoples, whose art knew this country from above before the sky was ever climbed.

More recently the Channel Country has entered the wider Australian imagination through Burke and Wills, the legendary Sidney Kidman, and the many bushmen and women who pitted themselves against its unpredictable rhythms — a landscape that gives and withholds on its own terms.

In March 2026, rain across the catchment flooded vast areas, sending three million megalitres of water into Kati Thanda. Slowly, the desert filled. Vegetation returned. The water moved through the land as it has done thousands of times over thousands of years, making and remaking its extraordinary patterns.

These photographs were taken with a GoPro mounted on the wing of a Cessna plane; capturing the landscape’s transformation.