3 minute read
Australian Walk: Lake Hart - walking on salt
Lake Hart - walking on salt
Lake Hart - a lake of
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By Frank Goldingham
Driving along South Australia’s Stuart Highway (the Explorer Way) from Port Augusta to Coober Pedy on the right is a sign that says Lake Hart.
It is time to stop, get out and stretch our legs and explore the lake area, right beside the main highway.
It’s 29 degrees and it is January, a very hot time of the year in South
Insert: The information kiosk. Below left: This vehicle has seen better days. Below right: A freight train heading south. Australia.
We find that this spot is also popular with campervaners, as it offers a free spot to camp in a large car park area.
The nearest fuel and food stops are both about 70kms away. Pimba to the south and Glendambo to the north. In between there is nothing except perhaps an aborigine or a wild animal.
The information sign is also a spot for getting some shade under the blazing 29 degree sun before we venture down the one kilometre track to the lake edge.
Down a gentle rise we find an old vehicle rusting away in the desert.
The lake looks like a huge mass of water but getting up close it we find it is a huge salt flat.
The sand track shows footprints where many have walked recently.
The main railway line from Adelaide to Darwin comes between us and the lake, but we find a concrete tunnel under the track. In a few minutes a freight train came roaring along. This is the railway line that the world famous Ghan Train travels along from Adelaide to Darwin.
The ground colour changes from brown with white specs the more we
- walking on salt
Above left: The red ground contrasts with the white salt lake bed. Above right: The highway goes beside the Woomera Rocket launch area.
walk towards the salt lake and then we find there is not a real lake edge. It just gets whiter and whiter the further we venture out. We are walking on a salt encrusted lake. This lake is part of the Lake Eyre National Park and was once an inland sea.
Stuart Highway begins in Port Augusta, 305 km north of Adelaide. The total distance to Darwin is 2711 km. The distance from Adelaide to Darwin is 3016 km. This is a very long drive through the different climate zones of Australia.
Once known as “The Track”, the Stuart Highway was named after explorer John McDouall Stuart who discovered a route through Australia’s inland on several excursions in the 1850s and 1860s.
Lake Hart is one of the smaller lakes in the Lake Eyre drainage basin that covers just under one sixth of all Australia.
The Lake Eyre Basin is the largest endorheic basin in Australia and amongst the largest in the world, covering about 1,200,000 square kilometres, including much of inland Queensland, large portions of South Australia and the Northern Territory, and a part of western New South Wales.
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