Simpson Desert
The Simpson Desert is a large area of dry, red sandy plain and dunes in Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland in central Australia. It is the fourth-largest Australian desert, with an area of.
The desert is underlain by the Great Artesian Basin, one of the largest inland drainage areas in the world. Water from the basin rises to the surface at numerous natural springs, including Dalhousie Springs, and at bores drilled along stock routes, or during petroleum exploration. As a result of exploitation by such bores, the flow of water to springs has been steadily decreasing in recent years. It is also part of the Lake Eyre basin.
The Simpson Desert is an erg that contains the world's longest parallel sand dunes. These north-south oriented dunes are static, held in position by vegetation. They vary in height from in the west to around on the eastern side. The largest dune, Nappanerica or Big Red, is in height.
History
Aboriginal history
The Wangkangurru people lived in the Simpson Desert using hand-dug wells called mikiri from long before European colonisation up until the Federation Drought.Post-colonisation
The explorer Charles Sturt, who visited the region from 1844–1846, was the first European to see the desert. In 1880 Augustus Poeppel, a surveyor with the South Australian Survey Department determined the border between Queensland and South Australia to the west of Haddon Corner and in doing so marked the corner point where the States of Queensland and South Australia meet the Northern Territory. After he returned to Adelaide, it was discovered that the links in his surveyor's chain had stretched. Poeppel’s border post was too far west by 300 metres. In 1884, surveyor Larry Wells moved the post to its proper position on the eastern bank of Lake Poeppel. The tri-state border is now known as Poeppel Corner. In January 1886 surveyor David Lindsay ventured into the desert from the western edge, in the process discovering and documenting, with the help of a Wangkangurru Aboriginal man, nine native wells and travelling as far east as the Queensland/Northern Territory border.In 1936 Ted Colson became the first non-indigenous person to cross the desert in its entirety, riding camels. The name Simpson Desert was coined by Cecil Madigan, after Alfred Allen Simpson, an Australian industrialist, philanthropist, geographer, and president of the South Australian branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia. Mr Simpson was the owner of the Simpson washing machine company.
In 1984, Dennis Bartel was the first white man to successfully walk solo and unsupported west-to-east across the Simpson, 390 km in 24 days, relying on old Aboriginal wells for water. In 2006 Lucas Trihey was the first non-indigenous person to walk across the desert through the geographical centre away from vehicle tracks and unsupported. He carried all his equipment in a two-wheeled cart and crossed from East Bore on the western edge of the desert to Birdsville in the east. In 2008, Michael Giacometti completed the first, and only, east-to-west walk across the Simpson Desert. Starting at Bedourie in Queensland, he walked solo and unsupported, towing all his equipment, food and water in a two-wheeled cart to Old Andado homestead. Also in 2008, Belgian Louis-Philippe Loncke became the first non-indigenous person to complete a north-south crossing of the desert on foot and unsupported and through the geographical centre,.
In 2016, explorer Sebastian Copeland and partner Mark George completed the longest unsupported latitudinal crossing of the Simpson They linked the Madigan Line, Colson Track and French Line for the first time, walking from Old Andado homestead to Birdsville, a distance of in 26 days.
In 1967, the Queensland Government established the Munga-Thirri National Park, formerly known as the Simpson Desert National Park
Access
No maintained roads cross the desert. The Donohue Highway is an unpaved outback track passing from near Boulia towards the Northern Territory border in the north of the desert. There are tracks that were created during seismic surveys in the search for gas and oil during the 1960s and 1970s. These include the French Line, the Rig Road, and the QAA Line. Such tracks are still navigable by well-equipped four-wheel-drive vehicles which must carry extra fuel and water. Towns providing access to the South Australian edge of the Simpson Desert include Innamincka to the south and Oodnadatta to the southwest; and from the eastern side include Birdsville, Bedourie, Thargomindah and Windorah. Last fuel on the western side is at the Mount Dare hotel and store. Before 1980, a section of the Commonwealth Railways Central Australian line passed along the western side of the Simpson Desert.Visitor attraction
The desert is popular with tourists, particularly in winter, and popular landmarks include the ruins and mound springs at Dalhousie Springs, Purnie Bore wetlands, Approdinna Attora Knoll and Poeppel Corner. Because of the excessive heat and inadequately experienced drivers attempting to access the desert in the past, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has decided since 2008-2009 to close the Simpson Desert during the summer — to save unprepared "adventurers" from themselves.Climate
The area has an extremely hot, dry desert climate. Rainfall is minimal, averaging only about 150 mm per year and falling mainly in summer. Temperatures in summer can approach 50 °C and large sand storms are common. Winters are generally cool, however, heatwaves even in the middle of July are not unheard of.Some of the heaviest rain in decades occurred during 2009-2010, and has seen the Simpson Desert burst into life and colour. In early March 2010, Birdsville recorded more rain in 24 hours than is usual in a whole year. Rain inundated Queensland’s north-west and Gulf regions. In total, 17 million megalitres of water entered the State’s western river systems leading to Lake Eyre. In 2010, researchers uncovered the courses of ancient river systems under the desert.
Ecology
The Simpson Desert is also a large part of the World Wildlife Fund ecoregion of the same name which consists of the Channel Country and the Simpson Strzelecki Dunefields bioregions of the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia.The flora of the Simpson Desert ecoregion is limited to drought-resistant shrubs and grasses especially Zygochloa paradoxa grass that holds the dunes together and the spinifex and other tough grasses of sides slopes and sandy desert floor between the dunes. The Channel Country section of the ecoregion lies to the northeast of the desert proper around the towns of Bedourie and Windorah in Queensland, and consists of low hills covered with Mitchell grass cut through with rivers lined with coolabah trees. The ecoregion also includes areas of rocky upland and seasonally wet clay and salt pans, particularly Lake Eyre, the centre of one of the largest inland drainage systems in the world, including the Georgina and Diamantina Rivers.
Wildlife adapted to this hot, dry environment and seasonal flooding includes the water-holding frog and a number of reptiles that inhabit the desert grasses. Endemic mammals of the desert include the kowari while birds include the grey grasswren and Eyrean grasswren. Lake Eyre and the other seasonal wetlands are important habitats for fish and birds, especially as a breeding ground for waterbirds while the rivers are home to birds, bats and frogs. The seasonal wetlands of the ecoregion include Lake Eyre and the Coongie Lakes as well as the swamps that emerge when Cooper Creek, Strzelecki Creek and the Diamantina River are in flood. The birds that use these wetlands include the freckled duck, musk duck, silver gull, Australian pelican, great egret, glossy ibis, and banded stilt. Finally the mound springs of the Great Artesian Basin are important habitat for a number of plants, fish, snails and other invertebrates.
Native vegetation is largely intact as the desert is uninhabitable. Therefore, habitats are not threatened by agriculture, but are damaged by introduced species, particularly rabbits and feral camels. The only human activity in the desert proper has been the construction of the gas pipelines, while the country on its fringes has been used for cattle grazing and contains towns such as Innamincka. Mound springs and other waterholes are vulnerable to overuse and damage. Protected areas of the ecoregion include the Simpson Desert, Goneaway, Lochern, Bladensburg, Witjira and Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre National Parks as well as the Munga-Thirri—Simpson Desert Conservation Park, Innamincka Regional Reserve and Munga-Thirri–Simpson Desert Regional Reserve. Ethabuka Reserve is a nature reserve in the north of the desert owned and managed by Bush Heritage Australia.