Channel Country, Queensland

Channel Country - 1560

In the parched heart of Queensland’s Channel Country, Cooper Creek weaves a watery tapestry across an ancient, sunburnt landscape. Unlike the linear clarity of most rivers, Cooper Creek defies simplicity—spreading out into a vast labyrinth of anastomosing channels, where water splits and rejoins in endless variations, writing and rewriting its path across the land.

Originating in western outback Queensland, this mighty creek—though often modest in flow—follows a southerly path before curving westward into South Australia. Its ultimate destination is Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, but few journeys are so uncertain. In most years, Cooper’s waters are claimed by the thirsty earth, lost to evaporation, or dispersed among permanent and semi-permanent waterholes that sustain life far from the coast.

Among these resting places is Lake Yamma Yamma, a seldom-seen spectacle that only fills during exceptional floods. The lake and the many braided arms of the Cooper form oases in an otherwise arid expanse, giving refuge to birdlife, frogs, and even fish carried by the flows. For the people of this land—including Traditional Owners who have read the language of the creek for millennia—Cooper is not just a river, but a living force, unpredictable and vital.

When rains do fall far to the north, and the catchments come alive, Cooper Creek becomes a slow-motion miracle. Water may take months to travel hundreds of kilometres, breathing life into red gibber plains and dry grasslands as it flows. For a moment, the desert blooms. Pelicans arrive. The silence lifts.

But this is no ordinary river, and rarely does it reach Lake Eyre. Instead, Cooper tends to disappear—into sandy soils, wide floodplains, and skies made thick with heat. Its vanishing act is part of its mystery, part of its enduring beauty.

It was here, on the banks of Cooper Creek, that one of Australia’s most storied and tragic expeditions reached both its greatest achievement and its ultimate unraveling. In 1861, Burke and Wills, leaders of the Victorian Exploring Expedition, made Cooper Creek their final base camp on their bid to cross the continent from south to north. After a gruelling journey to the Gulf of Carpentaria and back, they returned to the camp—famished and exhausted—only to find it abandoned hours earlier.

Stranded and weakened, Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills succumbed to starvation and exposure under the coolabah trees lining the creek. Their story has since become etched into the national memory, a tale of endurance, miscalculation, and the harshness of the inland. Only one of their party, John King, survived—kept alive with the help of the Yandruwandha people, whose deep knowledge of the creek and its bounty saved him.

Cooper Creek is a story of water in a land that often goes without. A thread of life, a witness to exploration, and a symbol of nature’s unpredictable grace in the Australian interior.

Silver Award - Epson International Pano Awards - 2020