Murujuga National Park

On the Burrup Peninsula in the Pilbara, piles of rust-red boulders tumble down the hillsides like the ruins of some giant's wall — and a startling number of them are engraved. Murujuga, the Aboriginal name for the peninsula and the surrounding Dampier Archipelago, holds what is regarded as the densest concentration of petroglyphs anywhere on Earth: estimates run to more than a million engravings, possibly two million, spread over a cultural landscape of about 100,000 hectares. Murujuga National Park, declared on 17 January 2013 as Western Australia's hundredth national park, protects a core of just under 49 square kilometres, and in July 2025 the wider Murujuga Cultural Landscape was inscribed on the World Heritage List.

The rock itself explains the art. These are igneous stones some 2.7 billion years old — granophyre, gabbro, dolerite and granite — whose surfaces have weathered to a dark red-brown skin of iron oxide over a pale layer beneath. Pecking through the skin exposes the lighter stone, and the result is an image that glows against the dark boulder. The engravings span an immense stretch of time: some are thought to be tens of thousands of years old, others far more recent, making the peninsula a running record of people living through changes of climate and coastline. Among the subjects are animals of land and sea, human figures, and the thylacine, the Tasmanian tiger long vanished from the mainland; the art also includes faces that some researchers consider among the oldest depictions of a human face.

The name Murujuga is usually translated as "hip bone sticking out", a reference to the heaped boulders that stand out in the landscape. Five language groups — the Ngarluma, Yindjibarndi, Yaburara, Mardudhunera and Wong-Goo-Tt-Oo, together known as Ngarda-Ngarli — care for the country and co-manage the park. The best introduction is the Ngajarli Trail in the valley once called Deep Gorge: a 700-metre boardwalk opened in 2020 leads past boulders crowded with engraved animals, grinding stones and shell middens, with signs telling the story of the place. Walk it early or late, when the low sun rakes across the stone and the carvings stand out most sharply.

Getting there

The park lies about 15 km north of Karratha, reached by Dampier Road and then Burrup Peninsula Road; the town of Dampier is close by. Karratha Airport (KTA) is about 16 km away. A car is the practical way to get around: the Ngajarli Trail car park is signposted from the peninsula road. Carry water — the Pilbara is hot for most of the year.