Innamincka

One of the most isolated communities in the world, it sits around 100 km north of Cameron Corner (29�� S, 141�� E) where the borders of South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland meet.

Where is it?: Outback South Australia. 1,027 km north east of Adelaide; 340 kilometres from Tibooburra, near the junction of the Strzelecki and Nappa Merrie tracks near Cordillo Station on Cooper Creek.




Cameron Corner

Cameron Corner
One of the most well known ���corner���s of the Australian outback is Cameron Corner, where the borders of the states of New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland meet. Here you can hit a golf ball out of NSW, it will fly over part of Qld before landing in SA. This is also where one can celebrate the New Year three times (also in Poeppel Corner and Surveyor Generals Corner), because it���s on the corner of three time zones. The roads and tracks in this region are generally earth-formed and corrugated but despite plenty of bulldust, are usually suitable for conventional vehicles with care.

Located about 1,400 kilometres west-southwest of Brisbane, Queensland, this corner is named for the surveyor, John Brewer Cameron, from the New South Wales Lands Department, who spent two years during 1880-82 marking the border between New South Wales and Queensland. Mr. Cameron erected a post there in September 1880 to mark its intersection with the border of South Australia. He placed a wooden marker every mile (1.6 km) eastwards along the interstate boundary.

New Year���s Eve occurs three times a year in Cameron Corner (also in Poeppel Corner and Surveyor Generals Corner), because it���s in the corner of three time zones.

Gidgealpa Waterhole

Gidgealpa
The first commercial discovery of natural gas in South Australia was made by Gidgealpa 2 in the Cooper Basin on 31st December 1963. Gray's Tree, Gidgealpa, located at Lake Massacre, is believed to mark the death and burial place of Charles Gray, first casualty of the ill-fated Burke and Wills Expedition, 1861. This is generally accepted on the basis that there is no better explanation for the blaze cut into the tree with a steel axe and that there is no other marker for Gray's burial site. The tree is on Kudriemitchie Rd, Kudriemitchie Outstation via Innamincka.

South Australia/Queensland border

About Innamincka
Natural features: Cooper Creek; Coongie Lake; Innamincka Regional Reserve; Strzelecki Creek

Heritage features: Innamincka Historic Reserve containing Aboriginal rock carvings and campsites; Burke's Memorial; ruins of the Australian Inland Mission headquarters and hostel; Burke & Wills National Heritage Place; Tinga Tingana Homestead ruin.

Origin of name: Of Aboriginal origin. It is a corruption of the word 'yidniminkani, which means 'you go into the hole there'. The name recalls a tribal totem hero who is said to have commanded a crocodile to disappear into a waterhole. The town was originally named Hopetoun, after John Adrian Louis Hope, 7th Earl of Hopetoun, Governor of Victoria (1889-95) who became Australia's first Governor General in January 1901. The town's name was changed in 1892.

Brief history: Cooper Creek was first reached by explorer Captain Charles Sturt in 1845, but was immortalised by the ill-fated 1861 expedition of explorers William John Wills and John O'Hara Burke. Proclaimed a township in 1890, Innamincka is a few kilometres to the west of a monument marking the site of the death of Burke, the leader of their ill-fated expedition, whilst the site of Wills' death is a few kilometres to the west of Innamincka.

Further east, over the border in Queensland on Nappa Merrie Station is the now famous 'Dig' tree, site of the cache of food left for the starving members of the South-North transcontinental expedition. For many years the township of Innamincka remained as it was in 1891, with a store, hotel, saddler's shop, Chinese eating house and a police station. Suffering the fate of other isolated inland communities Innamincka virtually died until 1972 when The Cooper's Creek Hotel-Motel and the Innamincka Trading Post were established to service travellers through the region.

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