Red Desert Port Edward

The Red Desert is a small area of bare red earth, gullies and eroded ridges a few hundred metres across, sitting incongruously in green subtropical country near Port Edward. It is often billed as the world's smallest desert, which it is not - it does not meet any rainfall definition of desert, and the claim is local marketing. The interesting question is how it formed. One account holds it is natural erosion of exposed sandstone; the more common explanation is that overgrazing by cattle, or nineteenth-century removal of vegetation, stripped the topsoil and set off gullying that never healed. The truth is not settled, which the site's own signage handles loosely. It takes ten minutes to walk and the colour is genuinely striking against the surrounding green. Quad biking has been offered on it, which does the erosion no favours.

Highlights

• The red gullies - bare eroded earth a few hundred metres across in green country.
• The colour contrast - deep red against subtropical vegetation on all sides.
• The disputed origin - natural erosion or human-caused, and genuinely unsettled.
• The desert claim - a marketing label rather than a climatic fact.

When to go

April to September. Half an hour - it is a stop on the coast road, not a destination.

Practical notes

It is very small and the "smallest desert in the world" billing sets people up for disappointment. There is a fee for what is a ten-minute walk. Little shade and no facilities. Quad activity has damaged parts of it.

Nearby

Port Edward beaches are minutes away; Oribi Gorge is north.