I have just received the following "before and after" photos from Lisa, - she, Daz and Mikie have just returned to the Alice from Adelaide. Lois, you should enjoy these - you've been there!
Lisa's comments are: "The land is looking amazing after the rain a couple of weeks ago from Cyclone Yasi. It is green as far as the eye can see around the Marla Bore and Coober Pedy areas, there is still a lot of water lying around. As the cyclone circled the area from Sunday 13th Feb. the temperatures plummeted from 40 c down to 17 c and dumped record breaking rain - Marla 142.2 mm, Mt. Dare 102 mm, Oodnadatta 100.6 mm and Coober Pedy 73.8 mm.
Cyclone Yasi caused so much damage, yet created so much beauty in the Red Centre and its deserts."
Our Dog Fence, the longest fence in the world - it stretches 5,614 km from Jimbour on the Darling Downs in Queensland (near Toowoomba) through thousands of kilometres of arid land ending west of the Eyre Peninsular, South Australia on cliffs of the Nullarbor Plain above the Great Australian Bight. It winds through national parks, rocket ranges, past salt lakes, over mountain ranges and several of the nation's harshest deserts.
This Dog and Dingo fence is a pest exclusion barrier that was built in Australia during the 1880s, to keep dingoes and wild dogs out of the relatively fertile south east part of the continent (where dingoes had largely been exterminated) and protect the sheep flocks of southern Queensland and of huge sheep grazing properties on the south east of Australia - purple line on the map below. 
It is still used today, although the fence maintenance is large, 'specially with wild camels pushing through it. This fence is checked by teams from 3 states for damage and repair needs. Parts of the Dingo fence are lit at night by 86 mm cold cathode fluorescent lamps which are alternately red and white, powered by long life batteries which are charged by photovoltaic cells during the day. The fence is held together by Gripples. A series of gates allow vehicles to pass through the fence.
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We have driven through the gates of this fence - just where this photo above was taken, on a few occasions in South Australia, and have never seen this "green lawn" look before. 
