Menindee Lakes

The Menindee Lakes are a series of shallow natural depressions that fill from the Darling River when it floods and shrink or dry between times, now regulated as a water storage. When full they hold several times the volume of Sydney Harbour and draw pelicans and waterbirds in enormous numbers; when empty they are cracked clay flats with dead river red gums standing in them, a landscape photographers seek out. Kinchega National Park on the lakes' edge preserves the Kinchega woolshed, where more than six million sheep were shorn, and old station buildings. Burke and Wills camped here in 1860 on their way north, and the village keeps that association.

What you actually see

• The lakes - shallow water and drowned trees, or dry clay pans, depending on the year.
• The Kinchega woolshed - the huge shearing shed from the pastoral era.
• The waterbirds - pelicans and waterfowl in numbers when the lakes fill.
• The river red gums - old trees along the Darling and standing in the lakes.

When to go

April to October for tolerable temperatures; summer exceeds forty degrees. Whether there is water at all depends on river flows and management, and the lakes have been near-empty for long stretches in drought years. Checking current conditions before travelling matters.

Honest expectations

Water levels are the whole experience and they are unpredictable; visitors arriving in a dry cycle find bare pans. Mass fish deaths in the lower Darling near Menindee have made national news in recent years. Facilities in the village are basic.

Nearby

Broken Hill lies northwest; Kinchega National Park is on the lakes' shore.