NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Tanami by truck
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2005 May 7, 08:48 +1000
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2005 May 7, 08:48 +1000
Kieran Kelly mentioned here recently an upcoming expedition. Any who have followed his postings concerning the 19th century explorer Augustus Gregory (he who used sextant and stars reflected in black tea to map his progress ? drinking the tea afterwards!) would not be surprised to learn it leads towards the Tanami Desert, in the remote north of the Australian state of Western Australia. They fly to Alice Springs, a town (the only) in the geographic centre of Australia, then take a truck to the north west, beyond any tracks. Four of them, including a photographer from the Australian Geographic magazine. Their destination is Lake Gregory, which for once has some water in it. The only habitation is not too far from the lake, an aboriginal community. They have the permit needed to go there plus other permits for when they pass in the vicinity of sacred sites along the way. It remains one of the most isolated places on the planet ? very few white people have ever been there ? and one of the most forbidding. The purpose of the trip is to locate a mountain that is lost in the Tanami desert. It was discovered and named Mt Wilson by Gregory in 1856 but is now in the wrong place on modern maps, a long way from the explorers? original route. Kieran is undertaking to find the mountain and have it located correctly on modern Australian maps to commemorate the explorer?s death in 1905. Kieran will take copies of Gregory?s expedition field books and maps as a guide to the position of the mysterious mountain. Should be quite an adventure. One of the expedition members told me that as well as a GPS, he is taking a theodolite for taking bearings. They will also use the theodolite to take a round of star sights at night to see how accurately they can fix the position of a mountain in the desert using the traditional instruments. Kieran has a passion for Gregory, an apparently meticulously skilful navigator who took regular lunar sights to check longitude, whom Kieran thinks has been somewhat neglected. They have probably chosen an ideal time for the trip, mid autumn in the southern hemisphere. Daytime temperatures in summer exceed 50 degrees Celsius, and winter nights are often below freezing. Its not uncommon to have these temperature extremes within the same day. For those who would like more information, Kieran has written: "Tanami - On foot across Australia?s desert heart" ISBN: 0732911885 and also "Hard Country Hard Men: in the Footsteps of Gregory" ISBN: 0868067156 Available at http://www.dymocks.com.au/ and possibly elsewhere.