Who wonders how the early explorers were feeling in Misery Bay or on Cape Tribulation? Captain Bligh and his crew found safe harbor on Restoration Island. The Pink Roadhouse on the Oodnadatta Track in South Australia is exactly that: a roadhouse painted pink.

Frank Hann found Lake Disappointment while searching for fresh water in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in 1897. When it isn’t dry, which isn’t often, it’s saltier than the oceans.

My personal favorite, Useless Loop Road, is a dirt track out on a peninsula near Shark Bay (guess what’s in the bay) in Western Australia; it gets to the water eventually, but is, well, useless, really.

Indigenous names, which often express love of country and connection to the land, often tie up white people’s tongues. For example, the road that connects the new highway to Mandurah just south of Perth is called Mandjoogoordap Drive. Say it really fast a couple of times and you might get it. In the Noongar language it means “meeting place of the heart.” Oodnadatta is an adaptation of “utnadata,” an Arrente word meaning “mulga blossom.”

The Aussie tongue — of white settlement at least — seems to prefer being firmly planted in the Aussie cheek. Consider, for example, the application of the word “great.”