Location: 110 km north of the town of Halls Creek and 250 km south of Kununurra in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

The Bungle Bungle Ranges, contained within Purnululu National Park, is an incredible landscape of tiger-striped, beehive-shaped sandstone domes rising 300m out of the arid landscape, interspersed with deep chasms with palm trees, and long, deep gorges with miniature fan palms adorning the rocks.

The Aborigines have known of and lived in this region for generations, but the ranges and its natural wonders were only "discovered" by the outside world in the mid-1980s. A television crew came upon the unique beehive-shaped domes in 1982 and in 1987 it was proclaimed a National Park.
Clearly visible from the air, but without tracks or trails, it took the pioneering ingenuity of an East Kimberley family man: a spotter plane; sacks of flour; lots of patience and a four wheel drive vehicle to find a reasonable and safe entry into the wonders of the Bungle Bungle Range. The spotter plane flew low and carried sacks of flour, which were thrown out from the aircraft to mark the most accessible route into the Bungle Bungles. The 4WD vehicle followed the white dusty flour trail through the brilliant red earth and found a way into this most splendid natural creation.
Geologists state that during the Devonian Era, 350 million years ago, a great marine deposit was formed here; it eroded away by the hundreds of millions of wet seasons to the present structure of domes, cliffs and gorges. Rather fragile, the orange bands on the rocks are of silica but the black bands are lichen, overlaying the white sandstone core. The Bungle Bungles gain their tiger-stripes from black algae growth that permeates the more porous layers of the rock, and a glossy orange build up of manganese and iron staining. Standing within these domes, you can't even begin to fathom the time it has taken for this process to occur. There are unique plants here, like a species of Livingstonia palm that has nowhere else been found.

Mini Palms Gorge

There are a number of ways to experience the Bungle Bungles. To appreciate the overall aspect of this weird landscape, one has to take to the air. On the ground you have to go on foot and that means first getting there by four wheel drive, via 80 km of rough dusty track off the main highway north from Derby to Kununurra. The route through the National Park offers views of boab or baobabs bottle trees that are typical of this area and of southern Africa and Madagascar.
A hike through this landscape with its sandstone domes is unforgettable. There are breathtaking gorges like Cathedral Gorge and Piccaninny Gorge; the latter is best taken as an overnight walk, 30 km in total, with sleeping in the open. On the Park's southern edge, Piccaninny Creek flows through a winding 12km gorge within the high walls of the domes. Cathedral Gorge is a spacious cavern rising high into the sky that will make anything insignificant for that moment in time. The walking tracks at Echidna Chasm, a narrow gorge with walls towering 100 metres and adorned with tall palms, run for 1.5 to 3km long and make for an interesting hike along a narrow gorge quite different to the other side. This is one of the most mysterious places of Australia. Permanent waterholes and remnants of tropical rainforest are found at Frog Hole and Mini Palms gorge.

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