Qualla: Serpentine Lakes

Serpentine Lakes: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tentotwo, CC BY-SA 3.0. From the air, the line is unmistakable: a pale, sinuous ribbon coiling across the red dune fields of the Great Victoria Desert, as if a serpent had been laid down and turned to salt. For almost 100 kilometres the Serpentine Lakes wind along the border between South Australia and Western Australia, a chain of dry salt pans that trace the bed of a river that stopped flowing before the dinosaurs. There are no towns here, no fences, almost no people. The only road is a single graded track, and the nearest fuel is hundreds of kilometres away. This is one of the emptiest corners of one of the emptiest places on Earth.

Read more: Serpentine Lakes on Qualla

Image: Tentotwo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Serpentine Lakes: The Ghost of a River

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marian Deschain, CC BY-SA 3.0. The lakes are not really lakes at all, most of the time. Their surface is dry clay, silt and sand, sealed under a crust of salt that glitters white against the surrounding ochre. Only after rare desert rains does water gather in the lowest channels, spreading across as much as 9,...

Read more: Serpentine Lakes on Qualla

Image: Marian Deschain | CC BY-SA 3.0

Serpentine Lakes: Country Returned

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marian Deschain, CC BY-SA 3.0. Most of the chain lies within Mamungari Conservation Park, a stark mosaic of Nullarbor limestone, salt-lake palaeo-channels and the dune fields at the heart of the Great Victoria Desert. In 1977 the area was recognised as one of Australia's UNESCO biosphere reserves, listed under...

Read more: Serpentine Lakes on Qualla

Image: Marian Deschain | CC BY-SA 3.0

Serpentine Lakes: The Loneliest Highway

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marian Deschain, CC BY-SA 3.0. The only road of any significance to cross the lakes is the Anne Beadell Highway, and "highway" is a generous word for it. It is a rough, unsealed track running 1,325 kilometres between Coober Pedy and Laverton, cutting across the northernmost arm of the Serpentine Lakes on its w...

Read more: Serpentine Lakes on Qualla

Image: Marian Deschain | CC BY-SA 3.0

Serpentine Lakes: Reading the Emptiness

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marian Deschain, CC BY-SA 3.0. It is tempting to call this a wasteland, but the Serpentine Lakes are listed as an important wetland, and the desert around them is anything but dead. The Great Victoria Desert holds a surprising richness of reptiles, birds and hardy plants tuned to drought, and the palaeo-channe...

Read more: Serpentine Lakes on Qualla

Image: Marian Deschain | CC BY-SA 3.0