engineering

The Peake

The Peake is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Peake rather than just read about it. In short: The Peake is an abandoned ruin on the banks of the Neales River in far north South Australia, near the mound springs complex known as Freeling Springs. The Peake was established initially as an outstation on the Mount Margaret Station, before becoming the main homestead in the late 1870s.

Key takeaways

The Peake belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Peake to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Peake from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Peake is an abandoned ruin on the banks of the Neales River in far north South Australia, near the mound springs complex known as Freeling Springs. The Peake was established initially as an outstation on the Mount Margaret Station, before becoming the main homestead in the late 1870s. It was a supply depot for the construction teams building the Overland Telegraph Line in 1870–1871, and also served as a repeater station on the Overland Telegraph Line from 1870 to 1891. It was a vital part of Australia's telecommunication network in the nineteenth century. Today it is part of the William Cattle Company holdings.

The Arabana The Peake is on the traditional lands of the Arabana people. The nearby mound spring complex – yardiya – contains important Dreaming sites. Ancestral figures including Yurkunangku and Kurkari camped at these springs. Other dreaming tracks also pass through this area. The Peake also sits on a trade route for pituri, and red ochre. The Arabana had multiple different encounters with European explorers, settlers and anthropologists, starting in the 1850s with John McDouall Stuart. In 1875, Francis James Gillen documented vocabularies of the Arabana around the Peake Repeater Station where he was visiting. Gillen was working as a telegraphist on the Overland Telegraph Line at the time. Gillen returned to the Peake in 1903, with his colleague Walter Baldwin Spencer. They collected Arabana vocabulary, mythologies, placenames, song texts and other cultural information.

The Arabana remained near the Peake throughout the 19th century; they were mentioned in various newspaper accounts, illustrations and sketches. The South Australian government maintained a ration depot at the Peake, and an estimated 68 Aboriginal people were present there in the 1890s; some worked as stockmen and others as rabbiters. Today, the Peake is part of the Arabana Aboriginal Corporation land and remains an important part of the cultural geography for the Arabana.

European exploration

European explorer John McDouall Stuart first arrived in the vicinity of the Peake in 1859, as part of an expedition surveying potential pastoral property in northern South Australia. In June 1859, he recorded the following in his journal:

At four miles and a half struck a large broad valley in which there are the largest springs I have yet seen. The flow of water from them is immense coming in numerous streams and the country around is beautiful. I have named these 'The Freeling Springs' after the honourable Major Freeling M.L.C. ... No person could wish for a better country for feed than that we have passed over to-day The Peake itself was named by Stuart after Edward John Peake, a son-in-law of James Chambers, one of the explorer's patrons.

Pastoral era Mount Margaret Station was established in 1859 as a sheep and cattle station – it was about 1,250 square kilometers. It extended from the edge of Lake Eyre (Kathi Thandi) northwards up, including the Neales River, the Umbum Creek and the Freeling Springs mound springs complex. Pastoral activities were first located at Umbum waterhole, with the Peake as an outstation. It was initially owned by Philip Levi, a British born, Jewish businessman who owned a number of sheep and cattle stations in the mid and far north of South Australia. The property was managed by Stephen Jarvis (born 1826, Britain; died 1879, Australia), who moved to Mount Margaret with his wife Ester and their four children. The "Great Drought" of 1864–1867 crippled Levi's holdings, and the property was sold off. In 1872, the property was acquired by John Bagot and his brother Christopher. Stephen Jarvis was recruited to help work on the Overland Line, and was instrumental in building the repeater station at Barrow Creek. The Bagots appointed Ernest Courtenay Kempe (known as "Eck" to his friends) as the new overseer. The homestead was moved to the Peake, and a small community grew up around the homestead. In the 1890s, Kempe moved the homestead to Wood Duck. In the early 1900s, the Bagots sold up, and Kempe purchased the property in partnership with Sidney Kidman. It became part of Anna Creek Station. In 2016, the Williams Cattle Company purchased The Peake Station, along with Anna Creek. Today, the Peake has a total area of 8130 square kilometers.

Telegraph repeater station

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Peake

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Peake claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Peake before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Peake ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Peake

In research: The Peake appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Peake in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Peake is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Demolished buildings and structures in South Australia, History of telecommunications in Australia, South Australian Heritage Register, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Peake outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study The Peake in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Peake means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Peake out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Peake in simple terms?

Why does The Peake matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Peake?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Peake.