Lake Mackay

Lake Mackay mapLake Mackay (Wilkinkarra) located in the Western Desert region of central Australia, crossing the Western Australia and Northern Territory borders. It is the largest of hundreds of ephemeral salt lakes scattered throughout Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Named after its European discoverer, Donald George Mackay, Lake Mackay is the second-largest lake in Australia, measuring approximately 100 kilometres (60 miles) east-west and north-south. It is the largest lake in Western Australia.

Lake Mackay features prominently in the Aboriginal Dreaming narratives of the Western Desert. The main mythological accounts of its origins can be clustered into three themes that contain references to a fierce bushfire that devastated the land and formed the lake.

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