Poeppel Corner (known as Poeppel's Corner in Queensland) at latitude 26° S and longitude 138° E is a corner of state boundaries in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, where the state of

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

meets

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 ...

and the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

Geography

Poeppel Corner is about 174 km west of

Birdsville Birdsville is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Diamantina, Queensland, Australia. In the the locality of Birdsville had a population of 110 people. It is a popular tourist destination with many people using it as a starting point acro ...

, in the middle of the

Simpson Desert The Simpson Desert is a large area of dry, red sandy plain and dunes in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland in central Australia. It is the fourth-largest Deserts of Australia, Australian desert, with an area of . The desert ...

New Year's Eve In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve, also known as Old Year's Day or Saint Sylvester's Day in many countries, is the evening or the entire day of the last day of the year, on 31 December. The last day of the year is commonly referred to ...

occurs three times each year at thirty minute intervals in Poeppel Corner (also in Cameron Corner and

Surveyor Generals Corner Surveyor Generals Corner (or Surveyor-Generals Corner) is a remote point where the Australian state boundaries of South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory meet. These boundaries meet at the easternmost point of the appro ...

), because it is at the intersection of three

time zones Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

History

Augustus Poeppel Augustus Poeppel (1839–1891) was a surveyor and explorer in Australia. He surveyed the borders between Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory. Early life Augustus Poeppel was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1839, the son of an arc ...

, after whom the point is named, conducted a survey in the mid-1880s to find the exact location of the central Australian colonial borders. His team used camels to drag a

coolibah ''Eucalyptus coolabah'', commonly known as coolibah or coolabah, is a species of tree found in eastern inland Australia. It has rough bark on part or all of the trunk, smooth powdery cream to pink bark above, lance-shaped to curved adult leaves ...

post to mark the intersection. Originally the point was located in a

salt lake A salt lake or saline lake is a landlocked body of water that has a concentration of salts (typically sodium chloride) and other dissolved minerals significantly higher than most lakes (often defined as at least three grams of salt per litre). ...

, but it was found that the

measuring chain Gunter's chain (also known as Gunter’s measurement) is a distance measuring device used for surveying. It was designed and introduced in 1620 by English clergyman and mathematician Edmund Gunter (1581–1626). It enabled plots of land to be a ...

used was a few centimetres too long. Another survey was conducted by

Lawrence Wells Lawrence Allen "Larry" Wells (30 April 1860 – 11 May 1938), frequently spelled Laurence Allen Wells, was an Australian explorer. Wells was born at Yallum Station near Penola, South Australia and grew up in the Mount Gambier, South Australia ...

, who relocated the post to its current position.

Tourism

As with the other three corners it is a destination for

four-wheel-drive Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case ...

tourists.

Heritage listing

The Poeppel Corner Survey Marker is a

heritage-listed This list is of heritage registers, inventories of cultural properties, natural and man-made, tangible and intangible, movable and immovable, that are deemed to be of sufficient heritage value to be separately identified and recorded. In many ...

site, having been added to the

Queensland Heritage Register The Queensland Heritage Register is a heritage register, a statutory list of places in Queensland, Australia that are protected by Queensland legislation, the Queensland Heritage Act 1992. It is maintained by the Queensland Heritage Council. As a ...

in 2012.

References

External links