Bumbunga is a locality in the

Mid North The Mid North is a region of South Australia, north of the Adelaide Plains and south of the Far North and the outback. It is generally accepted to extend from Spencer Gulf east to the Barrier Highway, including the coastal plain, the southern ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

north of

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

. It lies east of

Lake Bumbunga Lake Bumbunga is a salt lake located in the Mid North of the state of South Australia, between the town of Lochiel and the farming locality of Bumbunga, approximately 1.5 hours' drive from Adelaide. It is a pink lake, with its colour due to c ...

. According to anthropologist

Norman Tindale Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist. Life Tindale was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1900. His family moved to Tokyo and lived ther ...

the name was derives from ''parnpangka'', the local indigenous (

Kaurna The Kaurna people (, ; also Coorna, Kaura, Gaurna and other variations) are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kaurn ...

) term for 'rain water lake', referring to Lake Bumbunga. The town administration falls under the control of the

Wakefield Regional Council Wakefield Regional Council is a local government area in the Yorke and Mid North region of South Australia. The council seat is at Balaklava. Geography The Wakefield Regional Council includes the towns and localities of Avon, Balaklava, Bar ...

for local governance. Bumbunga lies in the state electoral district of

Narungga The Narungga people, also spelt Narangga, are a group of Aboriginal Australians whose traditional lands are located throughout Yorke Peninsula, South Australia. Their traditional language, one of the Yura-Thura grouping, is Narungga. Country ...

and in the federal electoral division of

Grey Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...

. The

South Australian Government The Government of South Australia, also referred to as the South Australian Government, SA Government or more formally, His Majesty’s Government, is the Australian state democratic administrative authority of South Australia. It is modelled o ...

's ''Atlas of South Australia'' describes the Bumbunga environmental subregion as being a low-lying (mean altitude alluvial plains "with salt lakes and occasional dunes." The atlas further describes the subregion as having "grassland cover used for rotation cereal cultivation and livestock grazing" and "low shrubland used for livestock grazing" on salt lake margins. Located on what was traditionally the land of the

(indigenous) people, the first pioneers arrived sometime between 1847 and 1849 due to the rapid expansion of farming to the north of the area. ''Bailliere's South Australian gazetteer and road guide'', published in 1866, contains a brief description of "Hummock's Run" located north of Port Wakefield. This farmland, according to the publication, contained the farming stations of Barunga, Bumbunga and Wokurna and consisted of "salt lakes and lagoons, dense scrub, with mallee, pine and bushes, grassy plains and saltbush, well grassed spurs and hills, with oaks and wattle on the Broughton River."Whitworth (1866) p. 283 A secessionist

micronation A micronation is a political entity whose members claim that they belong to an independent nation or sovereign state, but which lacks legal recognition by world governments or major international organizations. Micronations are classified ...

, the

Province of Bumbunga The Province of Bumbunga () was an Australian secessionist micronation located on a farm at Bumbunga near Snowtown and Lochiel, South Australia, from 1976 until approximately 2000. Its founder and only ruler was a British monkey trainer, uran ...

, was located in Bumbunga for approximately a decade in the 1970s and 1980s. The Bumbunga railway siding of the Port Pirie railway line was established in the early 1920s during the extension of the main line from Long Plains to Redhill. In 1926, a spur line was completed from the siding to Lochiel salt works on the south-western shore of

Salt Lake

About 1905 a hamlet called Salt Lake existed on Salt Lake Road, the present-day boundary between Bumbunga and Snowtown 750 metres (800 yards) north of Lake Bumbunga. The hamlet included the Salt Lake school, and a small cemetery that still exists on Salt Lake Road, 1.1 km (0.7 mi) east of

Augusta Highway Augusta Highway is the part of Australia's ring route (Highway 1) located in South Australia between Port Wakefield and Port Augusta. Route Augusta Highway starts at the intersection with Eyre and Stuart Highways in Port Augusta West, then ...

at .

References

External links

Local salt mining

Snowtown Museum
Towns in South Australia {{SouthAustralia-geo-stub