Intrepid Man to the Centre of Australia
Submitted: Monday, May 29, 2006 at 23:13
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Rick (S.A.)
A recent thread discused the Centre of Australia. Was it the point most distant from the sea; a point on which the land mass ' balanced '; or was it something else?
On Sunday May 28th 2006, Jon Muir set out to walk, unassited, to the Centre, from Pt
Augusta. He defines the Centre as that location furthest from the sea; about 40 km N of Mt Zeil, which is in the Macdonnell Ranges, NT.
For approx the next 100 days he will be entirely self sufficient. When he walked across Australia alone in about 200, he refused all offers of help - not even a drink of water. Likely he will do the same this time.
This bloke is a true bushman. Tough and obviously resourceful, he will in some part cross the tracks of
John McDouall Stuart, Australia's greatedst explorer. I know of no other like Jon. He has summitted most of the world's major peaks and walked to both the North & South Poles. He navigates the traditional way - watch & compass. No GPS.
I Dips me Lid.
If you see or hear anything of his travels on this route, please post a note. He plans to go W of L Torrens, up through the vicinity of
William Creek, east of the Ooodna Track, across the
Macumba River, along the
Finke River to its headwaters, and across the ranges to Mt Zeil, thence N to the Centre.
Cheers
Reply By: Member - Ian S (NT) - Tuesday, May 30, 2006 at 08:15
Tuesday, May 30, 2006 at 08:15
Hi Rick,
Thats doing it tough!
The
Lambert Centre 12kms north of the Finke -
Kulgera Road is the "balance centre". Stick Australia on a pin (or a replica of the
Parliament House flagpole) at the
Lambert Centre and it should balance. Me thinks.
Regards
Ian at Mt Dare
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Follow Up By: Rick (S.A.) - Tuesday, May 30, 2006 at 21:39
Tuesday, May 30, 2006 at 21:39
Ian
Me thinks the Geo Science site has the answer for us plebs!
Site Link
Here's their answer to the method you are referring to:
Centre of Gravity Method
More than 50,000 digitised points representing the coastline of mainland Australia were assigned a unit weight. The moments were calculated assuming equal units of latitude and longitude, the latter varying with the cosine of latitude. So what does all this mean? Imagine you had a perfect cut-out of Australia, with thousands of tiny weights distributed along the perimeter. The centre would be the place where you could balance the cut-out on a pin, and it would be perfectly horizontal. The results for this method would be:
23 degrees 7 minutes south latitude, 132 degrees 8 minutes east longitude; position on SF53-13
Hermannsburg 1:250,000 and 5351
Glen Helen 1:100,000 scale maps.
Cheers up there. keep an eye out for Jon Muir. Love to hear anything back in about 6 weeks(my guess only)
Rick
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Reply By: BigMav - Tuesday, May 30, 2006 at 11:41
Tuesday, May 30, 2006 at 11:41
Hi Rick,
Good to hear he's at it again! I read his book 'Alone Across Australia' fantastic read. Can you point us to any info on this latest expedition?
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Follow Up By: Rick (S.A.) - Tuesday, May 30, 2006 at 21:43
Tuesday, May 30, 2006 at 21:43
The latest info I had was in my post.................I was with Jon on Tues of last week, but have heard nothing since.
Probably need to hear something back from the locals as he trots through.
Perhaps ring a TV or radio station & suggest / request it ??????????
Cheers
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