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| Mount Hopeless | |
|---|---|
| Maiurru Mitha Vambata | |
  Mount Hopeless | |
| Highest point | |
| Elevation | 128 m (420 ft) [1] |
| Coordinates | 29°42′00″S139°40′30″E / 29.700°S 139.675°E Coordinates: 29°42′00″S139°40′30″E / 29.700°S 139.675°E [1] |
| Geography | |
| Location | Murnpeowie, South Australia, Australia [1] |
Mount Hopeless (alternative name: Maiurru Mitha Vambata) is in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, south-west of Lake Blanche. It is little more than a stony rise of 127 metres. It was over-named by the explorer Edward Eyre.
The Flinders Ranges are the largest mountain range in South Australia, which starts about 200 km (125 mi) north of Adelaide. The discontinuous ranges stretch for over 430 km (265 mi) from Port Pirie to Lake Callabonna.
South Australia is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of 983,482 square kilometres (379,725 sq mi), it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, and fifth largest by population. It has a total of 1.7 million people, and its population is the second most highly centralised in Australia, after Western Australia, with more than 77 percent of South Australians living in the capital, Adelaide, or its environs. Other population centres in the state are relatively small; Mount Gambier, the second largest centre, has a population of 28,684.
Lake Blanche is a salt lake in central South Australia that lies below sea level. It is located within the Strzelecki Creek Wetland System which is listed on A Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia. It also is within the extent of the Strzelecki Desert Lakes Important Bird Area, identified as such by BirdLife International because of its importance for waterbirds when holding water in the aftermath of floods.
In June 1840, Eyre left Adelaide with the aim of leading an expedition to the ‘centre’ of the Australian continent – the first colonist to make such an attempt. But in early September he was in despair. The land was dry. Most of the water he encountered was salty and it seemed to him that Adelaide was cut off from the interior by a great horseshoe shaped salt lake. On 2 September that year he climbed a stony rise which he named ‘Mount Hopeless’. As he explained, ‘cheerless and hopeless indeed was the prospect before us.’ The great salt lake, he went on, ‘was now visible to the north and to the east; and I had at last ascertained, beyond all doubt, that its basin, commencing near the head of Spencer's Gulf, and following the course of Flinders range (bending round its northern extreme to the southward), constituted those hills the termination of the island of South Australia, for such I imagine it once to have been. This closed all my dreams as to the expedition...’ (Edward Eyre, Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central Australia)
Robert O'Hara Burke tried several times to reach this outpost in 1861 when he became stranded with William John Wills and John King on Cooper Creek but he failed and returned to Cooper Creek, where he and Wills died shortly after.
Robert O'Hara Burke was an Irish soldier and police officer who achieved fame as an Australian explorer. He was the leader of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition, which was the first expedition to cross Australia from south to north, finding a route across the continent from the settled areas of Victoria to the Gulf of Carpentaria. The expedition party was well equipped, but Burke was not experienced in bushcraft. A Royal Commission report conducted upon the failure of the expedition was a censure of Burke's judgement.
William John Wills was a British surveyor who also trained as a surgeon. Wills achieved fame as the second-in-command of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition, which was the first expedition to cross Australia from south to north, finding a route across the continent from the settled areas of Victoria to the Gulf of Carpentaria.
John King was an Irish soldier who achieved fame as an Australian explorer. He was the sole survivor of the four men from the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition who reached the Gulf of Carpentaria. The expedition was the first to cross Australia from south to north, finding a route across the continent from Melbourne in Victoria to the Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland.
