The Bungle Bungle Rane in Australia

The Bungle Bungle Range, in Purnululu National Park, is one of the most attractive geological landmarks in Western Australia. The Bungle Bungle range features unique beehive-shaped sandstone towers and conglomerates alternately striped in black and orange bands. The Bungle Bungle Range formation occupies an area of nearly 450 square kilometers. The Bungle Bungle Range is a spectacularly incised landscape was not really discovered as a travel destination until the mid-1800s. The researchers believed that the sedimentary rocks of Bungle Bungle were formed in the Ord Basin 350 million years ago, when active faults were altering the landscape. The stunning rocks rises up to 578 metres above sea level, and stand 200 to 300 metres above a woodland and grass-covered plain, with steep cliffs on the western face. If you’re flying over Bungle Bungle range, it is a striking sight. Moreover, the area was traditionally occupied by Karjaganujaru peoples; they’re living here for more than 20,000 years, having strong affiliation to this ancient landscape.

The joint effects of wind from the Tanami Desert and rainfall over millions of years shaped the domes. Although the formation appears solid, the sandstone is very brittle. The weight of overlying rock holds the sand grains in place, but when this is removed, the sandstones are without difficulty eroded. The rounded tops imitate this lack of internal strength. Moreover, the water flowing over the surface will exploit the softness and irregularities in the rock, such as cracks or joints, and swiftly erodes the narrow channels that separate the towers. Cyanobacteria can't grow here and without the protective coat the surface is exposed to "rusting". Thus, one of the most prominent features of the sandstones is the alternating black and orange or grey banding. However, the darker bands comprises of permeable layers of rock, which let water to move through with ease. As the water keeps the rock surface moist letting dark algae to grow on them. Hence, the less permeable layers in between are well covered with a patina of iron and manganese staining, producing the orange bands. These outer coatings support to keep the lower parts of the towers from erosion.

Furthermore, a 7 km diameter circular topographic feature is clearly visible on satellite images of the Bungle Bungle Range. It is supposed that this feature is the eroded leftover of a very early meteorite impact crater that maybe hit the area somewhere 250 million years ago. This beautiful structure is well known as the Piccaninny impact crater. The range remained largely unidentified except by local Aborigines and stockmen until 1982 when film-makers arrived in this area and produced a documentary about the Kimberley. The area was gazetted as a National Park in 1987 and was also inscribed as a World Heritage area in 2003.

Kata Tjuta, A Group of Large Dome Formation in Central Australia

Kata Tjuta, is also called “Kata Joota”, and also famous as “Mount Olga” or colloquially as “The Olgas”, are a group of large domed rock formations “bornhardts” cover an area of 21.68 km2 located about 365 kilometers southwest of Alice Springs, in the southern part of the Northern Territory, central Australia. Both Uluru, and Kata Tjuta / Mount Olga form are the two major landmarks within the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. The majestically beautiful 36 domes that made up of Kata Tjuta / Mount Olga are composed of conglomerate, a sedimentary rock containing of cobbles and boulders of varying rock types as well as granite and basalt, cemented by a matrix of sandstone. Moreover, the alternative name, “The Olgas”, comes from the tallest peak, Mt. Olga, which is, highest point is 3,497 feet above sea level. In 1872, Mt. Olga was given name by Ernest Giles in the honor of Queen Olga of Wurttemberg. In 15 December 1993, a dual naming policy was adopted that allowed official names both traditional Aboriginal name and the English name. As a result, Mount Olga was renamed Mount Olga / Kata Tjuta. However, on 6 November 2002, the dual name was officially reversed to Kata Tjuta / Mount Olga.

The region organized an event known as the Woodroff Thrust, thrust granulite facies rocks northward over low-grade metamorphic rocks. The ultimate erosion of the formation resulted in a molasse facies, or deposition in front of rising mountains, though in this case the Petermann Orogeny, to make the deposit recognized as the Mount Currie Conglomerate. The Mount Currie Conglomerate is made up of predominately of basalt, granite porphyry, gneiss and volcanic rock fragments with a matrix composed of angular quartz, microcline and orthoclase among other minerals. Anangu are the traditional owners of Uluru-Kata Tjuta and the land around and they have been at this place from unidentified time. Although Anangu people have connected to the area for thousands of years and some historical records advice they may have been there for more than 10,000 years. They have always known that this is a very special place. There’re “Many Head” the huge rocks are separated by steep-sided gorges and valleys. Walking tracks lead around the area to lookouts, waterholes and picnic areas, while the main trail, Valley of the Winds, is a 7.5-km loop.

Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is so-called Red Centre of the continent and is a UNESCO World Heritage area. Both Uluru “Ayers Rock” and the Kata Tjuta “Mount Olga” are made of sediment originating in this Mount Currie Conglomerate and both have a chemical composition alike to granite. Scientists predict the rock dating have been given it an age of 600 mya, matching the date of the Woodroof Thrust event. Therefore, the actual fresh rock that makes up the Kata Tjuta / Mount Olga and Uluru / Ayers Rock are medium to dark gray with green or pink hues in some laminae. The bright orange-red hue, for which the structures are noted, is due to a patina over finely divided feldspar coated in iron oxide.There are several Pitjantjatjara Dreamtime legends accompanying with this place and undeniably everything in the vicinity including, of course, Uluru / Ayers Rock. A vast number of legends surround the great snake king Wanambi who is said to live on the summit of Kata Tjuta / Mount Olga and only comes down during the dry season. The majority of mythology surrounding the site is not unveiled to outsiders in particular to women. As is the custom, should women become identified to the "men's business" they are susceptible to violent attacks, even death. Kata Tjuta / Mount Olga can be accessed via Ayers Rock Airport. It is then a 55 km drive south, then west. Tourists have to pay National Park entry fee. The park is protecting hundreds of plant species, 24 native mammal species and 72 reptile species. To protect these, off-road access away from Uluru and Kata Tjuta is not allowed.

Kata Tjuta is most beautiful when viewed at sunrise or sunset. If you’re after some serious adventure, you can even grasp how incredibly ancient and strangely imposing Kata Tjuta is by tackling the moderately hard Valley of the Winds Walk. It is highly suggest to walk early in the morning as it makes a much comfortable. Therefore, if the climate is suitable for walks then visitors are allowed to walk, hence if temperature is 36 degrees or more, then walk is closed from 11am at the Kalpa lookout. So, early morning walk is best to avoid disappointment. If the temperature is due to be 36 degrees or more then this walk is closed from 11am at the Kalpa Lookout, so get there early to avoid disappointment. Another 2km walk that is available is the Olga Gorge Walk (Tatintjawiya), which walks into the beautiful gorge. The nearest accommodation to the Olgas would be at the Ayers Rock Resort, where there is a range of accommodation to suit all tastes and budgets. There's a picnic and sunset-viewing area with its glorious, blood-red best at sunset.

“Bunda Cliffs” Where the Earth End?

Bunda Cliffs is located on the Great Australian Bight in Southern Australia, is the vast, featureless Nullarbor Plain (is part of the area of flat, almost treeless, arid or semi-arid country of southern Australia), actually the “world’s largest single piece of limestone”, covering more than an area of 270,000 square kilometers and stretching over 1,000 kilometers from the east to the west. The area is so flat that the Trans Australian Railway runs across its surface for about 483 kilometers in a fully straight line. However, on the surface of the plain there are areas of slight depressions where sparse rainfall has slowly dissolved away some of the limestone. There are also places where underground caves or sinkholes have collapsed to form dents in the surface. But mostly, the plain is horizontally flat and devoid of trees, as its Latin name recommends. The “Nullarbor Plain” ends brusquely at the remarkable “Bunda Cliffs” containing over 200-kilometer-long precipice curving around the Great Australian Bight. Bunda Cliffs form the southern edge of the Nullarbor Plain which extends far inland. The white colored base you see near the bottom of the cliff face is Wilson Bluff Limestone. This chalky material made as part of an ancient seabed when Australia started to separate from Antarctica 65 million years ago. This Wilson Limestone is up to 300 metres thick but only the upper portion is visible in Bunda Cliffs. Moreover, above the white Wilson Limestone are whitish, grey or brown layers of limestone or crystalline rock. Few layers incorporate marine fossils as well as worms and molluscs indicating their marine origin. So, other layers are created with entirely of marine sediment (foraminifera). The Bunda cliffs are capped by a hardened layer of windblown sand laid down between 1.6 million and 100,000 year ago.

These majestically beautiful cliffs are some 60 to 120 meters high and sheer, and can be easily viewed from numerous viewing points along the Eyre Highway east of Eucla and west of Nullarbor roadhouse. However, they are better appreciated from the air. The Eyre Highway, Australia’s main east / west link, follows the line of this remarkable coast less than a kilometer inland. The highway was named after Edward John Eyre, who along with John Baxter and three aboriginals, set off from Fowlers Bay in 1841 in an attempt to reach Albany in Western Australia across the Nullarbor Plain. Though, lack of water and dangerous hardship gave rise to a mutiny and two of the aboriginal boys shot John Baxter and absconded. Eyre and the third Aborigine, Wylie, continued on their journey and completed the crossing in June 1841. The Eyre Highway was laid precisely a century later in 1941. Therefore, more than a distance of 85 kilometers along the highway, there’re 5 main lookouts on the cliffs with signed, gravel access roads from the highway. The western lookout is the most admired because tourists can walk to piece of rock jutting out of the cliff that provides a vantage looking point. At the eastern end of Bunda Cliffs there is a lookout at the Head of the Bight where tourists can stay for hours watching Southern Right Whales in the ocean below the cliffs. Whereas on the Southern Right Whales migrate from the sub-Antarctic in the autumn and give birth to calves in inshore water along the southern Australian coast, and then remain in the vicinity for months while the calves put on weight. Head of the Bight is one of these calving-mating grounds. If you want to see them, then there is a charge but then there is good viewing without environmental damage small price to pay.

Cleft Island, Wilsons Promontory in Australia

Cleft Island is a granite island located off the coast of Wilsons Promontory in the state of Victoria, in Australia. It is also recognized as Skull Rock, and belongs to a group of three islands called the “Anser Group”. It is one of the most scenic of all islands in Wilsons Promontory, and very beautiful, unspoiled and above all, is a tranquil place.  In the first look from some distance you may not think it is anything to write home about and that’s the beauty of it.  If you examine the island a little closer, you’ll soon see that the place is quite possibly perfect for an irredeemable scoundrel such as yourself. Indeed it looks like something from a hit movie script; a large stone, skull shaped rock rising halfway up from a deeply blue sea off an isolated stretch of coast.

The western side of the island has a massive cave with a grassy floor that was perhaps carved by the sea when the sea levels were much higher, thousands of years ago. Moreover, the cavern is 130 meters wide, 60 meters high and 60 meters deep. Hence at a certain angle, the island looks like a skull which is known as ” Skull Rock” and it is complete with a big cranium, an eye socket (the cave) and the bridge of a nose.  The history tells us, that the cave was once thought to be an ideal place for target practice by passing ships.There is in fact two large caves on the western side. Moreover, the roof of the smaller cave is about 25 meters above the sea and forms the floor of the upper larger cave, and it is well covered with soil and vegetation on its surface.

The island is practically unreachable with tall vertical cliffs and no place where a small boat could come ashore and anchor. Due to unreachable place, very few people have set foot on the island or explored the cave so far. Those who have, reportedly discovered cannon balls inside the cave. The Black-faced Cormorant birds are particularly, have taken advantage of Cleft Island’s isolation and inaccessibility to humans, by making the island its home. As intrepid but impulsive tourists have discovered, if you have a boat out to the island and start to circumnavigate it, then it’s secret is exposed.  Therefore, it is yet the handful who make it round the corner have never lived to tell the tale thanks to the piranha-bots we have in recent times had installed.

The Underground Coober Pedy is the Only “The Opal Capital of World”

Well, these days underground town is purely a unique idea. The Coober Pedy is a small mining town with a small population of just under 2,000. Coober Pedy is a town in northern South Australia, 846 kilometers north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway. but it's also recognized "opal capital of the world" and has been constantly supplying most of the world's gem-quality opal since it was first founded in 1915. In this waterless environment, not too much doings goes on above ground and instead, the community exists in a network of tunnels underneath the desert earth, inside some 1,500 homes and dwellings they call their "dug-outs". Coober Pedy began attracting curious tourists in the 1980s when the first hotel was built - underground, of course. 

Moreover, besides the interest of subterranean sleeping though, the town boasts a network of underground shops, bars, museums and several other attractions to visit. Therefore, an average cave home at approximately 8 to 22 feet below ground level with modern amenities, numerous bedrooms, living area, kitchen, and bathroom can be excavated out of the rock for pretty much the same price as building a house above surface (excluding the air conditioning bills). These modern design homes have support pillars about 40 inches thick and natural air shafts for ventilation. Though, there's no sewage in underground Coober Bedy so kitchens and bathrooms are always preferred to construct above ground, basically the front rooms of the house, where the dug-out entrance lies. During the night time, you can head above ground for a game of nocturnal golf on Coober Bedy's infrequent grass-free desert golf course. After dark, players are relaxing to use glowing balls and a carry a small piece of “turf” around to use for teeing off.