The Strzelecki Desert is located in the Far North Region of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

South West Queensland South West Queensland is a remote region in the Australian state of Queensland which covers . The region lies to the south of Central West Queensland and west of the Darling Downs and includes the Maranoa, Queensland, Maranoa district and parts o ...

and western

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

. It is positioned in the northeast of the

Lake Eyre Basin The Lake Eyre basin ( ) is a drainage basin that covers just under one-sixth of all Australia. It is the largest endorheic basin in Australia and amongst the largest in the world, covering about , including much of inland Queensland, large port ...

, and north of the

Flinders Ranges The Flinders Ranges are the largest mountain ranges in South Australia, which starts about north of Adelaide. The ranges stretch for over from Port Pirie to Lake Callabonna. The Adnyamathanha people are the Aboriginal group who have inhab ...

. Two other deserts occupy the Lake Eyre Basin—the

Tirari Desert The Tirari Desert is a desert in the eastern part of the Far North region of South Australia. It stretches 212 km from north to south and 153 km from east to west. Location and description The Tirari Desert features salt lakes and ...

and 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 Wangka ...

Name

It is named after the Polish explorer Paweł Edmund Strzelecki by

Charles Sturt Charles Napier Sturt (28 April 1795 – 16 June 1869) was a British officer and explorer of Australia, and part of the European land exploration of Australia, European exploration of Australia. He led several expeditions into the interior of the ...

. Sturt was the first non-indigenous explorer in the area in late 1845, followed by the ill-fated

Burke and Wills expedition The Burke and Wills expedition (originally called the Victorian Exploring Expedition) was an exploration expedition organised by the Royal Society of Victoria (RSV) in Australia in 1860–61. The exploration party initially consisted of ninet ...

in 1861.

Geography

The desert covers 80,250 km² making it the seventh largest desert in Australia. The

Dingo Fence The Dingo Fence or Dog Fence is a pest-exclusion fence in Australia to keep dingoes out of the relatively fertile south-east part of the continent (where they have largely been exterminated) and protect the sheep flocks of southern Queensland. ...

Birdsville Track The Birdsville Track is an 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 Strzel ...

, the

Strzelecki Track Strzelecki Track is a mostly unsealed outback track in South Australia, linking Innamincka, South Australia, Innamincka to Lyndhurst, South Australia, Lyndhurst. History In 1870, the track was pioneered by Stockman (Australia), stockman, D ...

, the

Diamantina River The Diamantina River is a major river in Central West Queensland and the far north of South Australia. The river was named by William Landsborough in 1866 for Lady Diamantina Bowen (née Roma), wife of Sir George Bowen, the first Governor of Qu ...

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 ...

and the Strzelecki Creek all pass through the Desert. The desert is characterised by extensive

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, flat ...

fields and is home to three

wilderness Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plurale tantum, plural) are Earth, Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human impact on the environment, human activity, or any urbanization, nonurbanized land not u ...

areas. Much of the desert is preserved within the Strzelecki Regional Reserve in South Australia. Parts of the eastern sections of the desert are protected by the Sturt National Park in

. A population of the endangered

Dusky Hopping Mouse The dusky hopping mouse (''Notomys fuscus''), is a small rodent Endemism, endemic to Australia, inhabiting desert regions characterised by Dune, sand dunes. Populations have experienced significant declines since the arrival of Europeans, and cont ...

lives in the desert.

Access

The Cobbler Sandhills near Lake Blanche is a section of the Strzelecki Desert where the dunes are replaced by small eroded knolls, mostly with vegetation on the top. This area provided great difficulty for early attempts to cross the desert by car, and the name relates to the sheep which were the most difficult to shear, known as the "cobblers".

References

External links

Innamincka.com: Aerial Video of the Strzelecki Desert
{{coord, -27.69, 140.41, dim:200000_region:AU, display=title Deserts of New South Wales Deserts of Queensland Deserts of South Australia Lake Eyre basin Far North (South Australia) South West Queensland Far West (New South Wales)

Name

Geography

Access

See also

References

External links