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Place Names Register Extract

Ilbpilla Soak

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Name Ilbpilla Soak
Type Designation Soak
Place Id 13706
Place Type Feature
Status Recorded
Date Registered
Location (Datum GDA94)  
Latitude: -23° 19' S (Decimal degrees -23.327388)
Longitude: 130° 21' E (Decimal degrees 130.355793)
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Locality / Suburb  
  Lake Mackay
Local Government Area  
  MacDonnell Shire Council
History/Origin The soak known today as "Ilbpilla Soak" was first recorded by Donald Mackay in 1930 when he used it as a base for his Aerial Survey Expedition, Central Australia.

Mackay's report indicates that on 26 April 1930 a "R Buch was dispatched from Alice Springs to "Erinberg Range " (sic) to clear an aerodrome". On 28 May "Neale made a perfect landing at Ilbpilla."

Idriess in "Lasseter's Last Ride" records from Lasseter's diary:
"Next morning at eight o'clock the party arrived at Ilbilba aerodrome, a clearing measuring about seven hundred yards square, the work of the Mackay expedition. Substancial bough sheds and "wings" of brushwood as breakwinds were still standing. Ilbilba itself proved to be a plain..."

Fred Blakeley in 1930 and recorded in "Dream Millions: New Light on Lasseter's Lost Reef" published in 1972 also records the name as "Ilbilba"

M Terry on his exploration plan following his 1932 Exploration of Central Australia (Expl 48) shows the feature as Ilbpilla - the name used by Mackay a couple of years earlier - in the Ehrinberg Range.

The name applied to the landing ground in 1930 is now attributed to the soak which Mackay reports to be 1.5 miles away in a ti-tree gully.

Register & Gazettal information

Date Gazettal Comment
  (None Found)  
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