The first European to see Lake Neale was the explorer Ernest Giles in 1872. He had seen Kata Tjuta from far away and was making his way there. Lake Amadeus blocked his path. He also saw Lake Neale when he tried to reach Mount Unapproachable, on the northern side of the lake. He was coming from the east, and did not notice a land bridge between Neale and Amadeus. He mistook them as one big lake. William Tietkens corrected this mistake in an expedition of his own seventeen years later.