Lake Pinaroo also known as Fort Grey Basin has extremely high cultural values, with many Aboriginal sites and remains from European exploration and settlement.

When full, Lake Pinaroo is a contrast to the dry landscapes of Sturt National Park, and you can see waterbirds like the freckled and blue-billed ducks, as well as brolgas, grey falcons and budgerigars.

A loop walking track has been established at Lake Pinaroo, which takes in historical sites including an old hut, steam engine and Sturt’s tree.

[3] There is generally only sparse vegetation on the bed of Lake Pinaroo but this is highly variable and dependent on time since flooding and soil moisture.

[3][6] Edible plants found in or surrounding Lake Pinaroo include Ruby saltbush Enchylaena tomentosa, Purslane Portulaca and Nardoo Marsilea .

Seed banks are an appropriate way to sample aquatic plant communities in arid wetlands and enable comparisons through all phases of erratic flooding and drying patterns.

cannabina, Psoralea australasica, Portulaca oleracea, Zehneria micrantha, Pterocaulon sphacelatum, Senecio cunninghamii var.

[4][6] The lake margin habitat included the inflow of Fromes Creek, which was notable for its high species richness.

This was probably due to variable soil types (sandy loam to cracking clay), microtopographic variation, and higher frequency and duration of inundation.The lake bed with cracking clay and rocky clay soils supported low shrubland with low species richness that was dominated by Solanum oligocanthum, Glyccyrhiza acanthocarpa, Maireana aphylla and Enchylaena tomentosum with forbs including Portulacca oleracea, Zehneria micrantha and the grass Sporobolus mitchelii.

These vegetation communities provide important habitat and food supply for faunal species; for example, almost 35% of Freckled Ducks’ gut contents sampled in Lake Pinaroo contained seeds of the Portulaca plant, while large Coolibah trees can be utilised as nest sites by waterbirds and birds of prey.

It is also used as a staging site by migratory waders such as black-tailed godwits, common greenshanks, marsh sandpipers and red-necked stints.

[6] Insects and crustaceans have resting stages resistant to desiccation and grow and reproduce opportunistically when water becomes available, becoming briefly abundant and productive as wetlands fill and then evaporate.

Beetles, dragonflies, flies, moths, bugs, grasshoppers and spiders were observed during a visit to Lake Pinaroo in May 2006.

Observations of invertebrates were made opportunistically in October 2001 when Lake Pinaroo was very turbid, fresh and shallow (perhaps up to 20–40 cm deep) and the zooplankton was dominated by Boeckella triarticulata.

The presence of fish-eating birds such as the Australian Pelican and cormorants at the wetland during wet periods suggests that Lake Pinaroo may support some species of fish.

Sites include both pre-contact and post-contact elements and therefore provide a record of Aboriginal culture and heritage undergoing a process of transformation and adaptation to new circumstances.

[6] The land, water, plants and animals within a landscape are central to Aboriginal people and their cultural spirituality, identity and wellbeing.

These include the Wadigali(alternative spelling Wadikali) centrally and to the west; Karengappa to the east; Wangkumara (alternative spelling Wongkumara) centrally, east to the Bulloo Overflow, north into Queensland and northwest to Innamincka, South Australia; and the Malyangapa to the south, including what was to become the township of Milparinka .

There is also extensive evidence of Aboriginal use and occupation around Lake Pinaroo, including hearths, scarred trees and artefact scatters.

At one stage of the expedition Sturt established a base camp at Fort Grey where there were a number of Aboriginal huts.

A blazed box tree with ‘Sturt 1845’ carved into the trunk, still stands near the stockade site and is thought to have been marked to record the location of a message bottle buried by a member of the expedition party.

[6] Charles Sturt, the most prominent of these early explorers, built a stockade next to Lake Pinaroo and named it Fort Grey.

However, it appears from rainfall data collected at Fort Grey and the limited literature available[8] that Lake Pinaroo can retain water for up to seven years.