Lyndhurst is a town in north-east South Australia which is at the crossroads of the Strzelecki Track and the Oodnadatta Track. It began as a railway siding in 1878.

History

The original inhabitants of the area were the Aboriginal nation of the Kuyani people. The town is at the southern end of the Strzelecki Track, whose northern end is at Innamincka. It was once a station on the original train route north known as the Great Northern Railway that was planned to reach Darwin, but only ever made it to Alice Springs. This railway line became known as the Ghan, and the last train ran along it in 1980. The route was always subject to the weather and wash outs, and a more permanent route has been constructed some 200 km to the west, and subsequently extended to Darwin in 2003. 80 km to the north is Marree, a small town that is at the junction of the Oodnadatta and Birdsville Tracks. Lyndhurst was gazetted as a town in 1896, and initially served as a freight centre for the railways that were connected in 1882. Mount Lyndhurst, 30 km east, was named after the British Lord Chancellor by the government surveyor Samuel Perry. In the 1860s, Thomas Elder took up vast areas in the northern Flinders Ranges region and called the property Mount Lyndhurst.

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Notable people