page_title: Simpson Desert
section_title: Post-colonisation
hierarchical_section_title: Simpson Desert / History / Post-colonisation
caption_attribution_description: English: Ted Colson's expedition across the Simpson Desert.
context_page_description: 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 176,500 km².
  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 3 metres in the west to around 30 metres on the eastern side. The largest dune, Nappanerica or Big Red, is 40 metres in height.
context_section_description: 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 (west-to-east across the dunes) 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 650 kilometres (404 mi) in 26 days.
  In 1967, the Queensland Government established the Munga-Thirri National Park, formerly known as the Simpson Desert National Park
caption: Ted Colson's expedition across the Simpson Desert in 1936
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