The Finke River, or Larapinta in the Indigenous Arrernte language, is a river in central Australia, the bed of which 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 thought to be the oldest riverbed in the world. It flows for only a few days a year. When that happens, its water usually disappears into the sands of the Simpson Desert and rarely, if ever, reaches Lake Eyre.
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👉 Finke River in the context of Gallery forest
A gallery forest is one formed as a corridor along rivers or wetlands, projecting into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands, or deserts. The gallery forest maintains a more temperate microclimate above the river. Defined as long and narrow forest vegetation associated with rivers, gallery forests are structurally and floristically heterogeneous.
The habitats of these forests differ from the surrounding landscapes because they are, for example, more nutrient-rich or moister and/or there is less chance of fires. The forests are sometimes only a few meters wide, because they depend on the water they lie along.
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Finke River in the context of Hermannsburg, Northern Territory
Hermannsburg, also known as Ntaria, is an Aboriginal community in Ljirapinta Ward of the MacDonnell Shire in the Northern Territory of Australia, 125 kilometres (78 mi); west southwest of Alice Springs, on the Finke River, in the traditional lands of the Western Arrarnta people.
Established as a Lutheran Aboriginal mission in 1877, linguist and anthropologist Carl Strehlow documented the local Western Arrernte language during his time there. The mission was known as Finke River Mission or Hermannsburg Mission, but the former term was later used to included a few more settlements, and from 2014 has applied to all Lutheran missions in Central Australia.
View the full Wikipedia page for Hermannsburg, Northern Territory