Purnululu National Park — national park
W. Bulach · CC BY-SA 4.0

Purnululu National Park

  • Elevation287 m
  • 2 min read
  • 17.449° S 128.546° E
  • UNESCO World Heritage
  • UNESCO natural beauty

Interesting facts

  • Purnululu means 'sandstone' in the local Kija (Gija) language; the origin of the name Bungle Bungle is uncertain and may come from a misheard word or a local grass.
  • The sandstone of the domes was laid down roughly 350 to 375 million years ago from sand and pebbles washed in by rivers from nearby mountains.
  • North-east of Piccaninny Gorge lies the Piccaninny crater, a meteorite impact structure about seven kilometres across that is best seen from the air.
  • Climbing on the domes is forbidden, because their loosely bound sandstone crumbles easily and walking on it would speed up erosion.
  • Fan palms (Livistona victoriae) cling to sheer gorge walls in the park and can grow up to about 12 metres tall.
  • Echidna Chasm narrows at its end to roughly a metre wide, so tight that little direct sunlight ever reaches its floor.
  • More than 600 plant species have been recorded in the park, some so recently discovered that they still lack formal names.
  • Lying where tropical and arid climate zones meet, the park supports about 150 bird species, including flocks of wild budgerigars.
  • Archaeological dating suggests Aboriginal people have lived in the region for at least 20,000 years, and the park holds many rock art and burial sites.
  • Purnululu was the second conservation park in Australia whose traditional owners won native title after the Native Title Act was amended to allow it.

Why it is worth it

Until 1983 the Bungle Bungle Range was known almost only to its Aboriginal owners and a few pastoralists. That year an aerial film crew making a documentary on the wonders of Western Australia flew over it, and the images of hundreds of striped, beehive-shaped domes rising from the savannah stunned the country. The national park was declared in 1987, and in 2003 Purnululu was inscribed as a World Heritage Site for its natural beauty and geology. It covers about 2,400 km² of the East Kimberley and is managed by the state conservation department together with its traditional owners, the Jaru, Gija and Malngin peoples, whose native title was recognised by the Federal Court in 2022.

The domes are the park's signature. They are carved from Devonian sandstone, a plateau worn over some 20 million years into cone-shaped towers up to 250 m high with steep sides and rounded tops. The famous banding is a living skin: orange layers are stained by oxidised iron where the rock dries out quickly, while the dark grey bands are crusts of cyanobacteria growing where moisture lingers. Both help to hold the fragile surface together. The Bungle Bungles are one of the finest examples in the world of cone karst formed in sandstone, and exactly how they took shape is still not fully understood.

On foot, the landscape turns into a maze. From the Piccaninny car park a trail winds between the domes and down between two rock walls into Cathedral Gorge, a vast natural amphitheatre of red rock. Echidna Chasm, by contrast, is a soaring slot canyon, its walls pressing close overhead, and the gorges that dissect the plateau run 100 to 200 m deep. From the air the domes appear as an endless field of orange and black hives, which is how the world first saw them.

Getting there

Kununurra, about 300 km to the north, is the usual base; East Kimberley Regional Airport at Kununurra (KNX) has scenic flights over the park. By road, the 53 km Spring Creek Track leaves the Great Northern Highway about 250 km south of Kununurra; it is suitable only for four-wheel-drive vehicles in the dry season (roughly April to December) and takes about three hours. Helicopter flights also operate from Bellburn airstrip inside the park and from Warmun roadhouse.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Western Australia 15The Most Beautiful Places in Australia 55The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed National Parks in Australia 5The Most Beautiful Nature Sanctuaries in Australia 6The Most Beautiful National Parks in Australia 7The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Gardens, Parks and Forests in Australia 7The Most Beautiful Gardens, Parks and Forests in Australia 10The UNESCO Sites of Exceptional Natural Beauty in Australia 10The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Australia 12The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed National Parks 27The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Nature Sanctuaries 43The Most Beautiful National Parks 61The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Gardens, Parks and Forests 61The UNESCO Sites of Exceptional Natural Beauty 77The Most Beautiful Nature Sanctuaries 91The Most Beautiful Gardens, Parks and Forests 232The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites 557

From the encyclopaedia

The Purnululu National Park is a World Heritage Site in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. The 239,723-hectare (592,370-acre) national park is located approximately 300 kilometres (190 mi) south of Kununurra, with Halls Creek located to the south. Declared a World Heritage Site in 2003, the park was inscribed as follows:

...[is a] remote area managed as wilderness. It includes the Bungle Bungle Range, a spectacularly incised landscape of sculptured rocks which contains superlative examples of beehive-shaped karst sandstone rising 250 metres above the surrounding semi-arid savannah grasslands. Unique depositional processes and weathering have given these towers their spectacular black and orange banded appearance, formed by biological processes of cyanobacteria which serve to stabilise and protect the ancient sandstone formations. These outstanding examples of cone karst that have eroded over a period of 20 million years are of great beauty and exceptional geological interest.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

-17.44879, 128.54605per Wikidata