Gairdner, Lake

▪ lake, South Australia, Australia

      largest of a group of shallow depressions west of Lake Torrens in central South Australia, 240 miles (386 km) northwest of Adelaide. It measures 100 miles (160 km) long by 30 miles (48 km) wide. Lying at the base of the Eyre Peninsula, the lake is a dry salt pan (playa) intermittently filled with water. Visited in 1857 almost simultaneously by Stephen Hack and Peter E. Warburton, it is named after Gordon Gairdner, former chief clerk in the Australian Department of the Colonial Office. Lake Gairdner was described by Sir Richard Graves MacDonnell, governor of South Australia, in October 1857:

Its size and remarkable cliffs projecting into a vast expanse of dazzling salt, here and there studded with islands, render it one of the most striking objects hitherto met with in Australian scenery.

      The lake is surrounded by large sheep stations set amid sand hills and saltbush vegetation. It has been used for attempts at the world land-speed record.

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