Arkaroola, South Australia

Arkaroola
South Australia

Arkaroola

Location in South Australia

Coordinates

30°18′42″S 139°20′10″E / 30.31167°S 139.33611°ECoordinates: 30°18′42″S 139°20′10″E / 30.31167°S 139.33611°E

Location

700 km (435 mi) from Adelaide city centre

Mean max temp	Mean min temp	Annual rainfall
25.7 °C ^{78 °F}	11.6 °C ^{53 °F}	254.3 mm ^{10 in}

Arkaroola is the common name for the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary, a wildlife sanctuary situated on 610 square kilometres (240 sq mi) of freehold and pastoral lease land in South Australia. It is located 700 kilometres (430 mi) north of the Adelaide city centre in the Northern Flinders Ranges, adjacent to the Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park and the Mawson Plateau. The most common way to get there is by car, but air travel can be chartered from Parafield Airport, Adelaide Airport or Aldinga Airfield. It is the atmospheric backdrop to the 2002 film The Tracker.

The area's first people are the Adnyamathanha. One of their dreamtime or creation stories says that Arkaroo, a mythical monster, drank Lake Frome dry. He then crawled up into the mountains. When he urinated he created the waterholes that are a feature of the area. His movement over the land created Arkaroola Creek.

The first Anglo-Europeans to visit the area was explorer Edward Eyre in 1840 and the surveyor George Goyder in 1857. There was a small failed settlement nearby, at the Yudnamutana copper mine, from 1860 to 1863. The drought of 1863 drove the miners away. Settlement didn't occur again until 1903, when rubies and sapphires were discovered. By 1910 a copper smelter was built at Yudnamutana and uranium was also discovered nearby by Douglas Mawson, famous Antarctic explorer.

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Wikipedia