Wildflowers and waterbirds populate Australia's flood-affected outback - and towns are crying out for visitors

Three months after western Queensland experienced its worst recorded flood, the arid landscape has exploded with wildlifeSign up for the Rural Network email newsletterIn outback Australia, between Windorah and Coopers Creek in far-western Queensland, there is a brown roadside sign stating "Point of Interest". A 50-metre drive brings you to a small gravel car park and a white flood marker for the 1974 flood level. It fronts a line of similar markers stretching back to the creek and its attendant channels. Beyond the car park, up the rise, a single white marker stands: March 2025, 8.7m. Windorah's highest recorded flood.Between 23 and 26 March, western Queensland received up to four times its average rainfall for the month. The fabled inland sea swelled before the eyes of the people who call the outback home; invading houses, drowning livestock, destroying roads and fences and turning what was, a day earlier, a drought-clutched landscape into a watery vista for as far as those eyes could see.Sign up to receive Guardian Australia's fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter Continue reading...