Look at that beautiful water. Just look at it. This is the Alberga River in remote northern South Australia, not too far from the NT border, running for the first time in 18 months.

The drone footage below was captured by outback cattle farmer Gillian Fennell who runs 5000 head of cattle on her million-acre property in a good year, though that's been more like 3500 in recent years due to an ongoing dry spell.

Yes, it's been dry even by local standards. Everything is relative with weather.

Image: At last! Source: Gillian Fennell.

But all that changed this week thanks to a good drop of rain. The Fennells registered 38 mm in their local gauge this week and showers are continuing on and off this Wednesday afternoon.

The Fennells' cattle subsist mostly on native herbage and mulga trees (plus supplements to help their digestion) but there's every indication that the cattle will have some grass to feed on before too long.

"The plan is to let the native grasses set seed before we graze them, where possible, so we can ensure the next generation of grass. We’ll see a lot of native herbage grow & seed in the next month or two. In about 10 months' time we should see a lot of baby calves," Fennell told Weatherzone.

"Coming into summer we will see some good feed growth, waterholes fill up and all the mulga freshen.

"As for the environment, frogs will spawn, lizards will hatch (they all laid about 4-6 weeks ago), birds will breed up. The river has run so all the big ghost gums get to live."

Image: Thanks to the flowing Alberga, Gillian Fennell's cattle will make great Alburgers. #Sorry. Source: Gillian Fennell.

While this rain is very welcome, more is needed. That's a familiar refrain from farmers across the country, but in a region where the annual rainfall (at the nearest official BoM weather station of Marla) is just 234.4 mm, every drop counts.

"I want to stress this is NOT drought breaking rain," Fennell said. "Not even close.

"Because we live in the desert we'll see good response but we have been in deficit for four-plus years. The environment won't recover properly or be able to suffer long periods of dry until that's addressed."

Want more outback rain stories?
Outback station's heaviest rain in 10 years means 4000 sheep can chomp grass all summer: