Dot and I have always wanted to see the legendary Bungle Bungles (Aboriginal - Purnululu), a spectacular mountain range that was, I understand, largely unknown until as late as 1983!! It is now World Heritage Listed and you'll shortly understand why. I must apologise in advance for an extraordinary number of photos, but when you see them I think you'll forgive me. We started very early from our camp-ground, knowing that by midday the temperature could soar to about 36 C (97 F) - especially in clear and sunny weather. The bus journey took perhaps half an hour, passing by scenery that arose in interest as time passed.
We really admire the Elephant rocks show below! If you look carefully you can see adjacent rounded elephants' head and two trunks all neatly carved by natural erosion.
You'll notice that a lot of the landscape contains horizontally banded and hard sandstone rocks most of which have been strangely eroded into domed structures. And the closer we approached the Bungle Bungles the higher and more domed the mountains became. The rocks in question were formed a long time ago ... some 350 million years to be precise. But, interestingly, they were formed from the erosion of another nearby range - the Osmond range, which still exists today to the north. We were told, astoundingly, that geologists reckon that (a) the Osmond range was originally as high as the Himalayas (!) and (b) the rocks are 1.9 billion years old (!!!)
See, on the left, the increasing numbers of domed-shaped outcrops!
And on the right the banding of the rocks becomes clearer.
Almost there. Here I am with the main part of the Bungle Bungles behind. That's where our bus was headed and our lengthy walk into Cathedral Gorge was about to begin.
That was after our bus stopped for drinks and collection of back-packs and that kind of thing. Dot's standing with her back to the camera and blue top ... in the foreground.
Cathedral Gorge is presented in the next post.
You'll be impressed.
AS
We really admire the Elephant rocks show below! If you look carefully you can see adjacent rounded elephants' head and two trunks all neatly carved by natural erosion.
You'll notice that a lot of the landscape contains horizontally banded and hard sandstone rocks most of which have been strangely eroded into domed structures. And the closer we approached the Bungle Bungles the higher and more domed the mountains became. The rocks in question were formed a long time ago ... some 350 million years to be precise. But, interestingly, they were formed from the erosion of another nearby range - the Osmond range, which still exists today to the north. We were told, astoundingly, that geologists reckon that (a) the Osmond range was originally as high as the Himalayas (!) and (b) the rocks are 1.9 billion years old (!!!)
See, on the left, the increasing numbers of domed-shaped outcrops!And on the right the banding of the rocks becomes clearer.
Almost there. Here I am with the main part of the Bungle Bungles behind. That's where our bus was headed and our lengthy walk into Cathedral Gorge was about to begin.
That was after our bus stopped for drinks and collection of back-packs and that kind of thing. Dot's standing with her back to the camera and blue top ... in the foreground.
Cathedral Gorge is presented in the next post.
You'll be impressed.
AS
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