Simpson Desert
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The Simpson Desert is a very dry part of Australia, mainly in the Northern Territory, but also in the north of South Australia and western Queensland. It covers about 176,500 square km[1], about 2.3% of Australia, and gets less than 150 ml of rain each year. It is made up of big red sand dunes up to 40 metres high, 190 km long and about 1 km apart. At most times there is no surface water, but after rain there can be rivers which flow into normally dry lakes. Temperatures in summer can be more than 50 C, and in winter can be below 0 C.
Early explorers into the Simpson Desert were Charles Sturt 1845, J.McKinlay, W.O. Hodgkinson, C.Winneke 1883, A.Poeppel 1879. The desert was named after A.A.Simpson, President of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia in 1929.
The first European to cross the desert was Ted Colson in 1936.