Vale Denis Bartell, famed desert adventurer

Famed desert adventurer Denis Bartell passed away peacefully on January 2 after a short Illness.

He was a legendary desert traveller, first crossing the Simpson Desert in 1977 – the first of 60-odd crossings by vehicle, camel and on foot. At that time he named the biggest dune in the Simpson, Big Red, and in conversations with him on top of that magnificent dune he reckoned he should have copyrighted that name.

In 1979 he became the first to drive what we now call the Madigan Line, and in 1980 he re-discovered many of the native wells that had eluded other searches.

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His canoe trips down the Cooper to Lake Eyre and other inland streams were just as groundbreaking and epic. He was also the first to drive a solar car from Darwin to Adelaide, a precursor of the annual solar challenge.

In 1984 he set out on foot across his beloved Simpson Desert, from Alka Seltzer Bore to Birdsville. That crossing, the first unaided walking crossing of the desert, took 24 days. The following year, he set out on his greatest physical challenge, a walk from Burketown on the Gulf of Carpentaria to Adelaide on the Gulf of St Vincent, via, of course, the Simpson Desert.

There were many other adventures, continuing up until recently, always with the Simpson Desert as its heart. Our thoughts are with his wife, Jeanne, his kids and greater family. RIP mate.