why it became Birdsville except to
say the name stuck and in 1882 it was
proclaimed a town.
Now with a population of just 140,
Birdsville has become a parody of
itself. Outback? Remote? Or a tourist
mecca that perhaps wouldn’t exist
if it was located elsewhere. Its ex-
istence, on the edge of the Simpson
Desert is its draw. Those 1,100 plus
sand dunes, all running parallel to
each other, have a spell over Birds-
ville that has helped it survive, with it
has come a horse racing carnival and
a music festival that draws in thou-
sands of tourists each year.
Leaving Birdsville, heading west
and now following the 26th parallel
south latitude, as Poeppel had after
reaching the conjunction of the 26th
and 141st, had so many years before,
we crossed the first dune into Mun-
ga Thirri (Simpson Desert National
Park). A sea of red stretched before
us as dune after dune rose from the
plain.
Up and over, up and over, it felt
like riding a dingy on a rolling surf.
What had Poeppel and fellow survey-
or Alexander Salmond thought when
confronted by such a sight?
More than seventy kilometres later
we found ourselves in the Northern
Territory and on the surface of a
TRAVERSE 108