Aputula, alternatively spelt Apatula (formerly Finke until the 1980s), is a remote

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to History of Australia (1788–1850), British colonisation. The ...

community in the

Northern Territory of Australia The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

. It is south of

Alice Springs Alice Springs () is a town in the Northern Territory, Australia; it is the third-largest settlement after Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin and Palmerston, Northern Territory, Palmerston. The name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William ...

and east of Kulgera roadhouse on the

Stuart Highway Stuart Highway is a major Australian highway. It runs from Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin, in the Northern Territory, via Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, to Port Augusta in South Australia; it has a distance of . Its northern and souther ...

, near the border with

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

. The

Finke River The Finke River, or Larapinta in the Indigenous Arrernte language, is a river in central Australia, whose bed courses through the Northern Territory and the state of South Australia. It is one of the four main rivers of Lake Eyre Basin and is th ...

(named after German prospector William Finke), which is dry for most of the year except during occasional

flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

s and is part of the

Lake Eyre basin The Lake Eyre basin ( ) is a drainage basin that covers just under one-sixth of all Australia. It is the largest endorheic basin in Australia and amongst the largest in the world, covering about , including much of inland Queensland, large port ...

, passes within a few kilometres of the community.

Location and geography

Aputula is the farthest populated place from the sea in mainland Australia, and therefore the nearest settlement to the geographical centre: the Lambert centre point of mainland Australia is west-southwest of the township.

History

A railway siding called Finke Siding was created on the

Central Australia Railway The former Central Australia Railway, which was built between 1878 and 1929 and dismantled in 1980, was a Narrow-gauge railway, 1067 mm narrow gauge railway between Port Augusta railway station, Port Augusta and Alice Springs. A standard gau ...

around 1925. It began as a small working men's camp, where the fettlers (railway workers) lived in concrete buildings without family. The nearest police and postal services were at Charlotte Waters and the district's cattle yards and railway station were at Rumbalara. Car travellers were rare. Aboriginal people started visiting the siding as soon as it was built. Lower Southern Arrernte and

Luritja The Luritja or Loritja people, also known as Kukatja or Kukatja-Luritja, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory. Their traditional lands are immediately west of the Derwent River, that forms a frontier with the Arrernte p ...

people established a camp in the sandhills nearby, trading

dingo The dingo (either included in the species ''Canis familiaris'', or considered one of the following independent taxa: ''Canis familiaris dingo'', ''Canis dingo'', or ''Canis lupus dingo'') is an ancient (basal (phylogenetics), basal) lineage ...

scalps, wild flowers, artefacts and other items for water and food. A

police station A police station is a facility operated by police or a similar law enforcement agency that serves to accommodate police officers and other law enforcement personnel. The role served by a police station varies by agency, type, and jurisdiction, ...

was built in the late 1930s, after the Charlotte Waters one closed down and the policemen, trackers, their families and some "aged and infirm" Aboriginal people moved to Finke. Residents petitioned for a postal service in 1938. Aboriginal visitors increased as people from Ernabella came to pick up supplies from the train. During the war years, the Central Australian Railway was the main transport route for thousands of soldiers from the southern states going to war in the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

, and the siding got its first

repeater In telecommunications, a repeater is an electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it. Repeaters are used to extend transmissions so that the signal can cover longer distances or be received on the other side of an obstruction. Some ...

station operator as well as its first privately owned business. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, local pastoralists convinced the government to move its cattle yards from Rumbalara to Finke because the

water quality Water quality refers to the chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of water based on the standards of its usage. It is most frequently used by reference to a set of standards against which compliance, generally achieved through tr ...

at Finke was much better, and the population was thus boosted. In 1947, the first pub, Finke Hotel, owned by Ted Colson (who had been the first European person to cross the

Simpson Desert The Simpson Desert is a large area of dry, red sandy plain and dunes in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland in central Australia. It is the fourth-largest Deserts of Australia, Australian desert, with an area of . The Wangka ...

), was opened. An air strip, which gave access to the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and race track were built by the Aboriginal residents. In 1949 the government started subsidising the town's water supply, but the 1950s saw a water crisis. In 1953, the

school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

was opened, and Town of Finke formally proclaimed on 18 August 1955, with town lands made available by auction in October. In the 1960s, the Aboriginal population of Finke rose as

drought A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...

and government patrols moved nomads off traditional hunting grounds, and there less work on cattle stations owing to changes in the industry. The people lived in wurlies, hunted rabbits and sold artefacts to increasing numbers of train tourists. Most non-Aboriginal people left Finke when the railway line was shifted westwards in the late 1970s, following the huge track-damaging floods of 1973 and 1974. The Indigenous population did not move. Instead, with the help of Margaret Bain, a Uniting Church

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

from Ernabella, they moved off the sand dunes into houses they built themselves. It was during this time that the town came to be known as Aputula, and transitioned from a European

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

to an Aboriginal community. The name comes from a place called 'Putula' (an Arrernte word) near the community, which used to be the site of a water soakage, where Arrernte people used to get their water, before the white people and the railway line came to the area. It also became a "dry town", after the council bought the pub and Johnny Briscoe, the town's first Aboriginal Health Worker, became the publican and ran it dry before giving away its liquor licence. The Aputula Housing Company, founded in the 1970s, has played an important part in the economy, and was run by local people as well as a group of

Torres Strait Islanders Torres Strait Islanders ( ) are the Indigenous Melanesians, Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal peoples of the res ...

who moved inland after the war. Several of the old buildings in Aputula, including the old police station, school and railway buildings have been nominated for heritage listing by the NT Heritage Council.

Camel police

Finke used to have a police force mounted on

camel A camel (from and () from Ancient Semitic: ''gāmāl'') is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. Camels have long been domesticated and, as livestock, they provid ...

s, possibly "the largest police patrol in the world", and the last police station in the NT to use camels. Aboriginal trackers were an essential part of the patrols, which were often responsible for finding people lost in

the bush "The bush" is a term mostly used in the English vernacular of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, where it is largely synonymous with hinterlands or backwoods. The fauna and flora contained within the bush is typically native to the regi ...

. The last camel patrol left Finke in 1953. Trackers were also invaluable in solving crimes such as the Sundown murders in 1957. Finke police were also responsible for inspecting stock, registration of births, marriages and deaths, looking after mines, protecting birds and collecting taxes. The policemen's wives ran the post office, and also distributed rations while their husbands were away on patrol and nursed sick people (there were no nurses or doctors in Finke).

Climate and demographics

Aputula holds the record of having the two hottest days ever recorded in the Northern Territory: on 1 and 2 January 1960. In the , the town and the immediately surrounding area had a population of 191 in 42 families; there were 59 private dwellings. The residents are Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Luritja, and Lower Southern Arrernte people. Most of the current inhabitants of Finke are migrants from the Western desert, who acknowledge that they are living on Southern Arrernte soil. The site has never been used as an Aboriginal camping place, even in pre-European times, because of the lack of water.

Notable inhabitants

* Ted Colson (1881–1950), pioneer and pastoralist, known for being the first European person to cross the Simpson Desert. * Brownie Doolan (1918–2011), tracker and the last person to speak the Lower Arrernte language. * Tali Tali Pompey (about 1945/47 – 16 November 2011), artist.

Sports

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

, with a team in the

SANFL The South Australian National Football League, or SANFL ( or ''S-A-N-F-L''), is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the state's sports governing body, governing body for the sport. ...

APY League * Finke Desert Race * Simpson Desert Bike Challenge