[4] The lake is usually a dry salt pan, and only holds water for short periods after heavy rainfall.

Neale flew one of the two planes that had been hired by explorer Donald Mackay for the expedition.

He was travelling towards Kata Tjuta after sighting the peak from a distance, but Lake Amadeus blocked his path.

He was coming from the east, and did not notice a land bridge between Neale and Amadeus, mistaking them as the one lake.

William Tietkens corrected this mistake in an expedition of his own seventeen years later.