BBC Wild Down Under

Two-thirds of Australia is as dry as a bone -

over 5 million square kilometers of rock, scrub and sand.

When Europeans came looking for farmland in the centre - just 150 years ago -

they were dismayed by what they found.

They wrote it off as the 'dead centre', rejected it,

as a good-for-nothing wasteland.

That couldn't be further from the truth.

The continent's dry heartland is like nothing else on the planet,

and it's full of life.

But could the new Australians ever see this spectacular land,

and love it, for what it really is?

Although the centre is hot,

much of it doesn't look like desert at all.

The first European explorers were convinced they'd find pasture here.

They found swathes of tall grass - surely the answer to their prayers.

But Spinifex is as tough as old boots.

It's the only grass that can grow in the poorest and driest soils.

The lack of native grazing animals should have tipped them off.

Not even kangaroos can chew on this stuff.

But these grasslands were dotted with strange red mounds,

a clue to what DID thrive here.

There are grazers, billions of them.

The explorers just couldn't see them.

Termites are the only animals that can stomach spinifex.

The grasslands cover a quarter of the continent,

so termites are one of the most powerful forces in Australia.

They've turned a virtually inedible grass into their bread and butter.

They have it all to themselves.

By chewing it up with spit and soil,

termites can even turn spinifex into walls that harden like brick.

The result is a multi-story complex that's both cool and secure.

And not just for termites.

At any one time the mound is crawling with spiders,

centipedes, geckos and skinks.

The termites themselves are a living larder.

Most of the grassland's life and death struggles

are played out along the mound's humid passageways.

For the knob-tailed gecko it's murder in the dark.

But the centipede is no walkover.

Each mound is a world within a world.

Termites eat grass; centipedes eat termites; geckoes eat centipedes.

In the desert, termites make the world go round.

In the grasslands outside the mounds, there are others waiting to pounce.

Low-energy lizards have really struck it rich in this desert economy.

They're virtually drought-proof

because they can survive on far less food and water than mammals or birds

and so there are millions of them.

Australia's desert wealth can be measured not in pasture,

but in the phenomenal variety of lizards per acre.

They have this unpredictable country licked.

Most lizards eat anything, but this one is picky.

The thorny devil only eats little black ants.

A thousand a day... if it can get into the groove!

It's cleverer than it looks.

Ants know the whiff of a dead comrade,

so the devil never lets them smell its breath.

It keeps lifting its head to puff away the telltale formic acid fumes.

The ants never catch on.

The first Europeans thought all these animals were useless.

And when they didn't find rich grazing land, they just saw emptiness -

the Never Never.

So it was a big surprise when they found people making a living here.

Aboriginal people have survived in the centre for over forty thousand years.

They moved across the land,

tapping into many different water sources and living off bush tucker.

They understood how to make the desert work for them.

They also used fire, not just for cooking and warmth,

but to manage the land.

They still use fire stick farming today.

To burn off the prickly spinifex,

and encourage edible plants to grow in its place.

It's a controlled version of the wild fires

that would have swept through the Outback even before these people arrived.

Most of the plants in the bush are dry and naturally packed with oils.

They ignite readily but they don't always die.

And their seeds often survive a blaze.

The scorched earth is a kick-start for new growth;

bush tomatoes, yams and bush-berries flourish.

Strange as it may seem,

many plants have evolved to live with fire

and so has the wildlife.

The mala is a small desert marsupial

that cannot breed without the succulent shoots that germinate after fire.

Bilbies also benefit from fire stick farming.

They look like down-under Bugs Bunnies but they're marsupials too.

They eat more or less anything.

But after a blaze

the poor desert soil is fertilized by the ash,

so there's a greater variety of plants and insects for them to sample.

Like the mala,

they feed after dark to avoid dehydration.

It's wickedly hot during the day, so some kind of shelter is vital.

They have powerful front legs and claws to help with that.

Two metres down is an air-conditioned retreat for the whole family,

and it's also the safest place to be during a grass-fire.

In good years, after a burn, they can have four litters on the trot.

So they can breed a bit like rabbits!

To survive in the Outback you need to understand how it ticks.

Something the Aboriginal people had learned from the life around them.

To them this landscape is steeped in meaning.

Their journeys across the centre follow paths of memory and understanding,

which often meet at sacred places

like Kata Tjuta... and Uluru.

To us it's a photo opportunity.

To them it's a timeless place that describes the way they see the world.

Patterns of erosion on Uluru's surface

tell the story of how the people

are connected to their ancestors and to the land.

They are intimate with it.

But for newcomers, the desert heart couldn't be more alien.

Frustrated Europeans battled to find a route across the continent.

Having travelled thousands of kilometers over the flattest country in the world,

they were disheartened to find a chain of mountains blocking their way.

The MacDonnell Ranges were once Himalayan-sized,

but Australia's so old,

they've crumbled and rusted into a geriatric spine.

Even so, it was a challenge to find a way through.

Unexpectedly,

their search took them from desert to an inner sanctum of natural wonders.

65 million years ago Australia was covered in luxuriant forests like these.

This valley of red cabbage palms is the last of their kind.

They were cradled here as the climate dried up,

saved from drying out because the porous rocks around them

hold water like a sponge.

Some of the trickle-fed pools never dry out.

That's heaven in a place where it might not rain for years.

Here, in the heart of the desert,

explorers were amazed to find fresh-water fish.

The billabongs in the ranges are so isolated

that some fish are found only in particular pools.

This must have been a sight for sore eyes.

Because of this permanent water,

there are more bird species in Australia's deserts than in all of Britain.

It's a particular lifesaver to birds on a dry diet of seeds,

such as budgies... and zebra finches that need frequent drinks.

The finches pump the water up with their tongues. They need to be quick.

They're forced to play cat and mouse with the local falcons.

But it's the spectator that gets lucky.

Life is a gamble in the desert...

and there are only a few deep, shady gorges that never dry out.

That's where black-footed rock wallabies hole up in the crevices and caves.

A sun-soaked ledge takes away the night-chill.

Usually they're not around in the day,

but this is the breeding season and life is getting a bit frenetic.

The male is trying to winkle himself in behind a female.

But she's determined to keep her back to the wall!

To reach all the females

he needs mountain-goat precision and wallaby spring-loading.

They'd like to stay glued to the rock face,

but most of their food is on the gully floor.

Rock wallabies are not much bigger than a cat.

Packs of dingoes work these gorges, so they need to watch out.

As the day stokes up

they do the sensible thing and find some shade.

In most other deserts of the world rainfall follows a pattern,

however scarce it might be.

In Australia it's totally and utterly erratic.

The rain is usually too light to make a difference.

But the mountains channel whatever does fall.

Rivulets become creeks and then rivers.

This is how a little goes a long way.

The Finke River has been cutting its course out of the central ranges

for nearly 300 million years.

It's thought to be one of the oldest rivers on earth.

It doesn't go to the sea, but heads further into the desert

and over a 700-kilometre route

it transforms the dry lands beyond the mountains.

Even as a ribbon of sand it's beaded with precious waterholes.

And long after water has vanished from the surface,

an avenue of trees can tap into water hidden deep in the sand.

Red-tailed black-cockatoos are never far from the Finke.

They flock along it - to wherever the food and water happen to be.

The large trees are a real draw.

It's in their shade that the cockies spend the hot afternoons socializing.

Red River gums offer multi-storey housing...

with made-to-measure nest holes.

These cockatoos are very large parrots, so they need something roomy.

It'll be a tight squeeze once Mum's in there too.

These intelligent birds can live for over 50 years,

and they spend a whole year raising a single chick.

It has a lot to learn.

The outback is not a predictable place.

In a long run of difficult years cockatoos must fall back on past experience

to find enough to eat.

Aboriginal people also had to be resourceful

and they never stayed too long in one place.

The Finke was a natural highway...

so not surprisingly it also opened up the centre to newcomers.

They arrived on imported camels and muscled-in around the reliable waterholes.

The Aborigines fought this land-grab.

There were ugly conflicts.

By the late 1880s even the poorest rangeland had been settled.

But many cattle stations went bust after a few dry years.

It's easy to get caught out.

The centre can look more promising than it is.

Mulga country doesn't even seem like desert.

It's a dense woodland of acacias, bloodwoods and ghost gums,

rooted in the out-wash of the central ranges.

Most woody shrubs are thirsty and demanding,

but these tough plants have flourished,