Cathedral of sand

From Birdsville towards the setting sun, sand dunes rise up like a phalanx of red parallel ridges for two hundred thousand square kilometres in beautiful linear symmetry, marching right across the Simpson Desert --  an area the size of Spain.

It is hard to comprehend that water, an enormous cache of life-saving ancient water, lies invisible and deep beneath all this sand.  It has been dripping, slowly, purifyingly, into the safe natural impermeable reservoirs of this basin for millions of years.  The fear, now is, that it could all be used up in decades in this new power-guzzling mining world we have created out here.

This great inland dune field is an erg; it contains some of the longest sand dunes in the world: some  two hundred kilometres long.  The dunes run south east to north west-- the direction the wind blew while forming them.  The largest ridge, Nattanepica, or Big Red, is a mammoth 40 metres high: it is the granddaddy of all our parallel dunes.

Some crazy enthusiasts can't wait to drive up it, over it, on it and around it.  The sides and plains between each dune are clamped together with drought-resistent grasses and tufts of spinifex.

Still, tiny quartz particles of sand are constantly shifting across the face of the dune, changing its complexion, changing its shape.

We are at the top of Big Red, with our wine glasses and cameras, as the sun goes down.

Corellas wheel and squeal and swoop as they fight that last hour for the best bunk for the night on one of the bare gums rimming the patch of remnant blue water left by recent rains.

We sometimes come across places in the world that feel extraordinarily special.  Tonight this is one of them.  As the sun sinks slowly behind the dunes words simply limp into silence.

The great natural cathedral of red pulsing sand gives off one last vibrant glow, then the sun quickly slips away, stealing the light.