THE SIMPSON DESERT

The Simpson Desert is famous for having the longest parallel sand dunes in

the world and the highest sand dune in the Southern Hemisphere. The average

height of each sand dune is between 10 – 20m high, with the highest

approximately 40m which is known as “Big Red” (this will be crossed on day

14). The average length of each sand dune is 200km, which run in a parallel

formation from NNE-SSW and are approximately 500m apart.  

 

Captain Charles Sturt was the first European to see the Simpson Desert (it

was originally called the Arunta Desert) in 1845. Sturt attempted to discover

whether the interior of Australia was a vast inland sea, as was believed to be

at the time, and departed Adelaide with 15 men and a boat! Coming across

the Eastern limit of the Simpson Desert, Sturt was unable to penetrate west

into the forbidding red sand hills and described it as “a desperate region

having no parallel on earth”.Please support

The first person to run accross the Simpson Desert was Ron Grant in 1981

and his time was beaten by Pat Farmer in 1996 covering the 379km route in 3

days, 17 hours, 31 mins.  Our event will be a world first to attempt to run a

640km route from the Geogrpahic Centre of Australia to Birdsville across the

full length of the Simpson Desert. 

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