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off from Mount
Etingamba 53 miles north of Bloods Creek with a lone aboriginal companion Eringa Peter. He carried provisions for two months, a compass and maps and travelled due east following the 26th parallel. Facing approximately 140 miles of unknown country, they subsequently traversed over a thousand sand ridges. He named some hills near the western side after his wife Alice, and a dry salt feature Lake Tamblyn after John Tamblyn his school master who was the second most influential person in his life after his father. His course took him to
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155:) in the Northern Territory. He ran a store and hotel, and became well known as a community leader. In 1948 he organised the Finke Amateur Racing Club's first horse race meeting, which was a resounding success. Just two years later in February 1950 while driving a new motor vehicle home from Adelaide, he collided with a power pole at Balaklava, South Australia and was killed.
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on 11 June, and set out for the return journey three days later. He had missed the corner post on the outward trip (by only 300 yards), but found it on the return journey and took photographs as it was still in good condition after 50 years since its placement. They arrived back at Bloods Creek on
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had made an aerial reconnaissance in 1929, which proved that the desert was composed of numerous parallel sand dunes, with no evidence of permanent water. In May 1936 after a season of good rains, Colson chose to attempt the crossing from west to east and return using five camels. On 27 May he set
93:. Over the next four years, Colson travelled extensively in Central Australia and developed a rapport with the aboriginal people of the region. He was a guide and camel handler for the expeditions to the
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His father was a farmer of
Swedish descent and Colson was the first of eight children. Prior to his 15th birthday in 1896, Colson and his father travelled by sea to
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29 June 1936, after 36 days and almost 600 miles of travel. Colson planned a second crossing in 1938, but it did not proceed due to a lack of resources.
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and they remained married until he died. They moved to
Victoria in 1917 for construction work, and in 1926 he started his own transport business from
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138:(90 miles from Birdsville) where the states of Queensland and South Australia meet with the Northern Territory. Colson and Peter reached
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February 1950) was a bushman, pastoralist and pioneer who achieved recognition as the first person of
European descent to cross the
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in 1930. Colson took up the lease of Bloods Creek station north-west of
Oodnadatta in 1931 to run sheep and a local store.
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The Fisher
Library at the University of Sydney has a collection of correspondence between Elkin and Colson (AA62.htm)
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The State
Library of South Australia has a collection of Colson's papers, correspondence and maps (Acc. No. D5830)
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which runs from the middle of the
Simpson Desert to Numery Station near Alice Springs is named after him.
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to
Melbourne. Moving again in 1927 they went to South Australia to work on a new railway line between
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Following his journey across the
Simpson, Colson established the Colson Trading Company at Finke (now
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Although a number of explorers had probed the Simpson Desert from the mid 1800s, including
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315:(Map). Eight Mile Plains Queensland: Hema Maps. pp. 72, 101.
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Ted Colson's expedition across the Simpson Desert in 1936
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The Simpson Desert:Natural History and Human Endeavour
73:, then walked 150 miles to the gold-rush district of
206:Adelaide Advertiser 30 July 1940 Famous Bushman
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242:Advertiser 31 aug 1936. Tribute to Schoolmaster
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221:. Marleston S.A.: J.B.Books. p. 3.
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300:Centralian Advocate Fri 10 March 1950
268:. North Adelaide SA: Corkwood Press.
253:Pandora National Library of Australia
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195:Australian Dictionary of Biography
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289:Centralian Advocate 2 April 1948
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41:June 1881 – 27
313:Australia Road and 4WD Atlas
71:Esperance, Western Australia
57:at the southern end of the
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264:Shephard, Mark (1999).
219:Crossing the Dead Heart
217:Madigan, Cecil (2001).
354:Explorers of Australia
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359:Australian explorers
311:Hema, Maps (2007).
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336:Provenance Colson
322:978-1-86500-456-3
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369:1950 deaths
364:1881 births
275:187624707-X
147:Final years
83:Healesville
348:Categories
179:References
140:Birdsville
87:Oodnadatta
79:Kalgoorlie
22:Ted Colson
95:Petermann
75:Norseman
153:Aputula
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159:Legacy
65:Career
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35:Colson
55:Quorn
53:near
317:ISBN
270:ISBN
223:ISBN
164:The
125:and
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31:Ted
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