The Tirari Desert is a

desert A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About on ...

in the eastern part of the Far North region of

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 ...

. It stretches 212 km from north to south and 153 km from east to west.

Location and description

The Tirari Desert features

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

and large north–south running

sand dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...

s. It is located partly within the

Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre National Park Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre National Park (formerly Lake Eyre National Park) is a protected area in the Australian state of South Australia. It is located 697 km north of the state capital of Adelaide, Australia, Adelaide within the gazetted loca ...

. It lies mainly to the east of

Lake Eyre Lake Eyre ( ), officially known as Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, is an endorheic lake in east-central Far North South Australia, some north of Adelaide. The shallow lake is the depocentre of the vast endorheic Lake Eyre basin, and contains the ...

North.

Cooper Creek The Cooper Creek (formerly Cooper's Creek) is a river in the Australian states of Queensland and South Australia. It was the site of the death of the explorers Burke and Wills in 1861. It is sometimes known as the Barcoo River from one of its t ...

runs through the centre of the desert. The adjacent deserts of the area include

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 ...

which lies to the north while the

Strzelecki Desert The Strzelecki Desert is located in the Far North Region of South Australia, South West Queensland and western New South Wales. It is positioned in the northeast of the Lake Eyre Basin, and north of the Flinders Ranges. Two other deserts occup ...

is to the east and the

Sturt Stony Desert Sturt Stony Desert (previously Sturt's Stony Desert) is an area in the north-east of South Australia, far south western border area of Queensland and the far west of New South Wales. It was named by Charles Sturt in 1844, while he was trying ...

runs aligned with the Birdsville track to the north east. The desert experiences harsh conditions with high temperatures and very low rainfall (mean annual rainfall is below ).

Access and stations

The main vehicular access to the desert is via the unpaved

Birdsville Track The Birdsville Track is a notable outback road in Australia. The track runs between Birdsville in south-western Queensland and Marree, a small town in the north-eastern part of South Australia. It traverses three deserts along the route, the St ...

which runs northwards from Marree to

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 ...

. The Mungerannie Hotel is the only location between the two towns that provides services. The Tirari Desert region has a number of large

cattle station In Australia and New Zealand, a cattle station is a large farm ( station is equivalent to the American ranch), the main activity of which is the rearing of cattle. The owner of a cattle station is called a '' grazier''. The largest cattle stati ...

s which are stopping points on the

Channel Country The Channel Country is a region of outback Australia mostly in the state of Queensland but also in parts of South Australia, Northern Territory and New South Wales. The name comes from the numerous intertwined rivulets that cross the region ...

aviation mail run. Dulkaninna Station has been run by the same family for 110 years, has 2,000 cattle and breeds horses and

kelpie A kelpie, or water kelpie (Scottish Gaelic: ''Each-Uisge''), is a shape-shifting spirit inhabiting lochs in Scottish folklore. It is usually described as a black horse-like creature, able to adopt human form. Some accounts state that the kelpie ...

s. Etadunna Station to the north is a

with 2500 cattle. The station environs include a number of heritage sites include Bucaltaninna Homestead ruins, the Woolshed ruins and Canny

Trig Point A triangulation station, also known as a trigonometrical point, and sometimes informally as a trig, is a fixed surveying station, used in geodetic surveying and other surveying projects in its vicinity. The nomenclature varies regionally: they a ...

(also known as Milner's Pile) and the state heritage-registered Killalpaninna Mission site. Further north again is

Mulka Station Mulka Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station in the far north of South Australia. The land occupying the extent of the Mulka Station pastoral lease was gazetted as a locality by the Government of South Australia on 26 ...

which also has a number of heritage sites including homestead ruins at Apatoongannie, Old Mulka and Ooroowillannie. The Mulka Store ruins is listed as a state heritage place on the

South Australian Heritage Register The South Australian Heritage Register, also known as the SA Heritage Register, is a statutory register of historic places in South Australia. It extends legal protection regarding demolition and development under the ''Heritage Places Act 1993'' ...

Vegetation

The vegetation of the dunefields of the Tirari Desert is dominated by either Sandhill Wattle (''

Acacia ligulata ''Acacia ligulata'' is a species of ''Acacia'', a dense shrub widespread in all states of mainland Australia. It is not considered rare or endangered. Common names include sandhill wattle, umbrella bush, marpoo, dune wattle, small coobah,Cunning ...

'') or Sandhill Cane-grass ('' Zygochloa paradoxa'') which occur on the crests and slopes of dunes. Tall, open shrubland also occurs on the slopes. The otherwise sparsely vegetated dunefields become covered by a carpet of grasses, herbs and colourful

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s following rains. The interdune

soil type A soil type is a taxonomic unit in soil science. All soils that share a certain set of well-defined properties form a distinctive soil type. Soil type is a technical term of soil classification, the science that deals with the systematic categoriz ...

s and hence the vegetation, varies with the dune spacing. Closer spaced dunes result in sandy valleys that have similar vegetation to the dune sides while widely spaced dunes are separated by gibber or

flood plain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

s, each supporting particular vegetation communities. The vegetation on the floodplains varies with the capacity of the land to retain floodwaters, and the frequency of inundation. In drier areas, species including Old Man Saltbush (''

Atriplex nummularia ''Atriplex nummularia'' is a species of saltbush from the family ''Amaranthaceae'' and is a large woody shrub known commonly as oldman saltbush. ''A. nummularia'' is native to Australia and occurs in each of the mainland states, thriving in ari ...

''), Cottonbush (''

Maireana aphylla ''Maireana aphylla'', also known as cotton bush or leafless bluebush, is a leafless (or almost leafless) shrub that is endemic to Australia. It is usually rounded in form and grows to around in height. The species occurs in all mainland state ...

'') and Queensland Bluebush (''

Chenopodium auricomum ''Chenopodium auricomum'', the Queensland bluebush, is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaranthaceae Amaranthaceae is a family of flowering plants commonly known as the amaranth family, in reference to its type genus ''Amaranthus'' ...

'') form a sparse, open shrubland, whereas swamps and depressions are frequently associated with Swamp Cane-grass ('' Eragrostis australasica'') and Lignum (''

Muehlenbeckia florulenta ''Duma florulenta'' (synonym ''Muehlenbeckia florulenta''), commonly known as tangled lignum or often simply lignum, is a plant native to inland Australia. It is associated with wetland habitats, especially those in arid and semiarid regions su ...

''). The intermittent watercourses and permanent waterholes associated with tributaries of

support woodland dominated by River Red Gum (''

Eucalyptus camaldulensis ''Eucalyptus camaldulensis'', commonly known as the river red gum, is a tree that is endemic to Australia. It has smooth white or cream-coloured bark, lance-shaped or curved adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven or nine, white flowers an ...

'') and Coolibah (''

Eucalyptus coolabah ''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, ...

''). As at 2008, the Tirari Desert is included in biogeographic regions (IBRA) SSD3:

Dieri The Diyari (), alternatively transcribed as Dieri (), is an Indigenous Australian group of the South Australian desert originating in and around the delta of Cooper Creek to the east of Lake Eyre. Language Diyari is classified as one of the Ka ...

, part of the

Simpson Strzelecki Dunefields The Simpson Strzelecki Dunefields, an interim Australian bioregion, comprises , and is part of four state/territories of Australia: the Northern Territory, South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland

(SSD) Region. The desert is also part of the Tirari-Sturt stony desert

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of l ...

Fossils

The desert includes the

Lake Ngapakaldi to Lake Palankarinna Fossil Area __NOTOC__ The Lake Ngapakaldi to Lake Palankarinna Fossil Area is a group of fossil sites located in the Australian state of South Australia within the Tirari Desert in the north-eastern part of the state's Far North region. The group has an ...

, a area on the now-defunct

Register of the National Estate The Register of the National Estate was a heritage register that listed natural and cultural heritage places in Australia that was closed in 2007. Phasing out began in 2003, when the Australian National Heritage List and the Commonwealth Heritag ...

with significant

Tertiary period Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

vertebrate Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, ...

fossils.

History

The area was first explored by Europeans in 1866 and was previously settled by a small tribe of Aboriginals, the

Tirari The Dhirari (or Dirari or Tirari) were an indigenous Australian people of the state of South Australia. They are not to be confused with the Diyari people, though the Dirari/Dhirari language (now extinct) was a dialect of the Diyari language. Name ...

Dieri people

The Tirari Desert has been part of the

people's

native title Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, ...

claim. The Australian 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 ...

reported a small tribe now extinct which he referred to as the Tirari. They were located at the eastern shore of Lake Eyre from

Muloorina Muloorina is both a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station and a formal bounded locality in South Australia. The name and boundaries of the locality were created on 26 April 2013 after the long-established local name. The property ...

north to Warburton River; east to Killalapaninna. Tindale disagreed with the earlier findings of

Alfred William Howitt Alfred William Howitt , (17 April 1830 – 7 March 1908), also known by author abbreviation A.W. Howitt, was an Australian anthropologist, explorer and naturalist. He was known for leading the Victorian Relief Expedition, which set out to es ...

that these people were a horde of the Dieri as the language spoken was different from Dieri. Since Tindale's work was published, much of the data relating to Aboriginal

language group A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...

distribution and definition has undergone revision since 1974. Tindale's focus was to depict Aboriginal tribal distribution at the time of European contact.

Missions

In the 1860s two Aboriginal missions were established near the Cooper Creek crossing of the Birdsville Track. The

Moravians Moravians ( cs, Moravané or colloquially , outdated ) are a West Slavic ethnographic group from the Moravia region of the Czech Republic, who speak the Moravian dialects of Czech or Common Czech or a mixed form of both. Along with the Silesi ...

established a short-lived mission at Lake Kopperamanna in 1866. This was closed in 1869 due to drought conditions and poor relations with the local indigenous community. Bethesda Mission was established by German

Lutherans Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...

at nearby Lake Killalpaninna around the same period and, after also being abandoned for a short time, was re-established and by the 1880s it resembled a small town with more than 20 dwellings including a church. At this time, it had a population of "several hundred aborigines and a dozen whites". Primarily financed by sheep grazing, the mission closed in 1917 due to the effects of drought and rabbit plagues. Currently, there is little evidence of the settlement other than a small cemetery and some remnant timber posts. The mission remains are listed on the

as the Killalpaninna Mission Site.

European exploration

On an 1866 expedition to determine the northern limit of Lake Eyre,

Peter Egerton Warburton Colonel Peter Egerton-Warburton (16 August 1813 – 5 November 1889), often referred to as Major Warburton, was a British military officer, Commissioner of Police for South Australia, and an Australian explorer. In 1872 he sealed his legacy th ...

approached the desert from the west and followed the upstream course of what is now known as the Warburton River, but which he incorrectly believed was Cooper Creek. In 1874 another expedition, led by

James William Lewis James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...

, again followed the river upstream to the

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_ ...

border, retracing the route on the return journey and then headed south to the Kopperamanna mission. Subsequently, they followed the course of

to conduct a survey of the east shore of Lake Eyre. Lewis, in a later account of his expedition, said of the lake "I sincerely trust I may never see it again; it is useless in every respect, and the very sight of it creates thirst in man and beast."

References

External links

Map of Tirari DesertOnline Natural History of Tirari DesertTirari Desert SA @ ExplorOz
{{coord, 28, 22, S, 138, 07, E, type:landmark_region:AU-SA, display=title Deserts of South Australia Far North (South Australia) Lake Eyre basin IBRA subregions