The Bungle Bungle Range, Purnululu

The grey stripes are living bacteria, the orange ones are rust

The Bungle Bungle Range rises out of the semi-arid savannah of the East Kimberley in Western Australia, about 300 km south of Kununurra, inside Purnululu National Park. It is a maze of beehive-shaped domes up to 250 metres high, striped all the way up in alternating bands of orange and dark grey, cut through by sheer-sided gorges and slot canyons 100 to 200 metres deep. UNESCO calls it by far the most outstanding example of cone karst in sandstone anywhere in the world, and listed the park as a World Heritage Site in 2003.

The stripes are a map of water. The domes are Devonian sandstone, which the park puts at about 350 million years old, eroded into towers over some 20 million years by wind, rain and sheet wash carrying the sand grains away. The layers differ in clay content and porosity. Where a layer dries out too fast for anything to grow, iron compounds oxidise and turn it orange. Where moisture collects, cyanobacteria, single-celled photosynthetic organisms, grow a dark grey crust on the surface. Those living crusts and the iron rinds hold the fragile surface together, and the colours shift with the rain and the angle of the sun. How the cones formed in the first place is still not completely understood.

In 2022 the Federal Court of Australia recognised the Purnululu and Gajangana Jaru native title claimants as its traditional owners; the Bungle Bungles Aboriginal Corporation holds the title in trust for Jaru, Gija and Malngin people. The park is managed by the state's Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions together with the traditional owners.

There are 14 walk trails across the 45,000-hectare range. In the north lie Echidna Chasm, Mini Palms Gorge and Homestead Valley, hidden chasms and cliffs lined with Livistona fan palms. The southern end holds the classic domes, Cathedral Gorge and Piccaninny Creek. The two ends are 47 km apart, so the park suggests at least two nights in one of its two campgrounds.

Getting in is part of the adventure. The Spring Creek Track leaves the Great Northern Highway for 53 km of corrugated, winding earth road with creek crossings, high-clearance four-wheel drive only, 1.5 to 3 hours to the visitor centre. The park opens in the dry season, roughly April to November, and daytime heat can pass 40°C. Helicopter flights over the domes leave from Bellburn Airstrip in the park.