Lake Eyre – one of the wonders of the world – exercise 2

1. [Match]

Can you pick out the words you hear linked together in the video?

(stark – adjective – severe or bare in appearance (“Our country is a land of (such) stark contrast(s)!”)
barren – too poor to produce much vegetation / fruit / seed; bleak and lifeless. (of a female animal) unable to produce young
swell – verb – to become larger or rounder in size, especially as a result of an accumulation of fluid.” Eg The rivers have been swelling / are swollen (past participle)
downstream – adj / adv – situated or moving in the direction in which a river flows
If you eke out an existence you only just manage to survive, you manage to make a living with difficulty
After the end of this exercise you may have continued to hear that Rex was the first man ever to sail in a boat from one side of Lake Eyre to the other, in 1974.
This is described as his claim to fame – an achievement for which he became well known, or remembered. We sometimes use this structure humorously, or ironically – eg Matthew’s main claim to fame was that he climbed up a ladder to get back into his house after locking himself out! i.e. everyone remembers this incident.
)

Answers for Quiz [1].

• 1. the outback (correct)
• 2. once every decade (correct)
• 3. stark (correct)
• 4. barren (correct)
• 5. torrential (correct)
• 6. swelling (correct)
• 7. downstream (correct)
• 8. teeming (correct)
• 9. over the last 12-18 months (correct)
• 10. things happening thousands of kilometres away (correct)
• 11. being able to see some pretty rare breeding events (correct)
• 12. a black kite (correct)
• 13. Kalamoona (?) (correct)
• 14. 44 (correct)
• 15. 20 (correct)
• 16. arid (correct)
• 17. eking out an existence (correct)
• 18. 10 (correct)
• 19. respite (correct)
• 20. absolutely beautiful and very surreal (correct)