Day 94 | a pointless detour to the centre of Australia: then out on the Kulgera Road
62 km | Heading west total: 3,587 km
Lambert Centre is the geographic centre of the mainland landmass of Australia: latitude 25° 36’ 36.4” South, longitude 134° 21’ 17.3” East to be precise.
It was calculated by taking 24,417 equidistant points around the coastline of the mainland and processing the result. I guess that must be every mile along the coast. The centre is a bit further south and east than you might think because Victoria and New South Wales bulge down south a fair way and the Gulf of Carpentaria takes a big chunk out of the north.
It’s about 13 km off the main Finke road and going there is pretty pointless other than you travel through some big sand dunes that don’t get a lot of traffic. The sign on the main road indicated 4WD only as the road has some areas of deepish sand.
It took me almost 3 and a half hours to travel the 27 km return trip on the sand track which was an average speed of under 8 km per hour. And that was without my trusty trailer, Bob, or the panniers. Some of the time it was just easier to make progress by thrashing through the shrubbery.
That’s what it takes to get to, well, the centre of absolutely nowhere. The bizarre thing is the centre is marked with a dwarf version of the flagpole over Parliament house in Canberra.
So what exactly is the symbolism of that?