And, to tell the truth, they still do. As we rounded a bend the track plunged into a fair old river sweeping across the gravel. So did we. When we hit the water a solid wave swept over the bonnet and up the windscreen while the headlights shone through our bow wave. The pattern of lakes stretches for 20 kilometres, connected by switchback tracks across the dusty dunes.
Some lakes are open bowls with low shores like a southern reservoir transported to Mars.
There were no rules when these craters exploded into their present form. A bitter wind had sprung up from the south by the time we had rested through the remainder of what serves for a night in these parts. We trekked across springy moss to a small crater separated from a larger lake by a narrow bar. A fish rose splashily in the short waves beneath a pinnacle of rotted lava. A minute or so later the rod was bending down towards the surface in the satisfactory manner of big trout anywhere in the cosmos.