Reduced to a string of stagnant mustard-coloured pools, fouled in places with pesticide runoff and stinking with the rotting carcasses of cattle and fish, the Darling River is running dry. The parched earth of Australia's longest waterway, if tributaries are included, is in the grip of the continent's most severe drought in a century.
The past two years have been the driest in the catchment area of the Darling, which flows 2,844 km over the outback to the sea, and adjoining Murray river since records began in 1900.
Last summer was the hottest on record, and in Menindee, where temperatures regularly top 38 Celsius, another scorching season is expected.
(Photograph:Reuters)