Just got back from a superb tour to the Rock and the lake, we were amazed by the size and especially the colours.. had to fly half way down the lake from the north to get to the water, but the excursion was well worth it. With the viewing angle, the water/lake/ground changes colour from a deep blue to purple to almost bright red, and some of the shore/dune bits where the water has receded from have very picturesque red borders one them. Will post some pictures here once I've had a chance of sorting the wheat from the chaff.. still plenty of water, at 500 feet you're hard pressed to see the far shore, the thing is positively massive!
Route was Archerfield-Roma-Charleville-Birdsville-Alice Springs-Ayers Rock-Oodnadatta-Lake Eyre-Birdsville-Charleville-Archerfield, we cursed a 20-30 westerly on the way out and enjoyed the 130-140 knots ground speed on the way back.
I can totally recommend the trip, awesome scenery, great hospitality (love the Birdsville Hotel bar), fantastic night skies, the list is endless!
Also had a million to one chance encounter on the way back yesterday with what looked like a low flying PC-12 or a Navajo/Chieftain in the middle of nowhere.. in between Birdsville and Charleville, right in the middle of fecking nowhere, my passenger suddenly went 'woooooow' and when I looked up I saw for a second a fast mid-sized plane going left to right around 400-500 feet above us, around half a mile to a mile in front of us. Don't ask me why I can't put my finger on the type more accurately, I think I was a bit stunned there for a second to suddenly see another aeroplane up close in that spot, I think I saw the turbine exhaust of the PC-12 glistening in the sun and thought I recognised the general shape of the type but could be mistaken.. odd for one of those to be at 10000, we were at 9500..
That little 'airprox' brought home the importance of regular broadcasts on area and 126.7, even when in over 25 hours of flying we ever only physically saw this one aeroplane in the sky (heard a few on the radio obviously), and that wasn't for lack of looking out either, we had on average four eyeballs looking out at all times...
I wonder if the other pilot had me sighted or on TCAS if he/she had one?!