Purnululu National Park
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How it came to be
Purnululu National Park covers about 239,723 hectares of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. At its centre is the Bungle Bungle Range, Devonian quartz sandstone that some 20 million years of erosion have cut into beehive-shaped towers rising up to 250 metres above the surrounding savannah. The dark grey bands across their slopes are crusts formed by cyanobacteria.
Aboriginal people have lived in the area for more than 20,000 years, and native title is held in trust for the Jaru, Gija and Malngin peoples. Until 1982 the range was known to almost no one except local Aboriginal people and stockmen. That year film-makers arrived and produced a documentary about the Kimberley.
The area was gazetted as a national park in 1987 and inscribed in 2003; UNESCO calls it by far the most outstanding example of cone karst in sandstone. Mining and mineral exploration are prohibited, and the park closes in the wet season, from December to early April. In 2022 the Federal Court recognised the Purnululu and Gajangana Jaru native title claimants as the traditional owners of the area.
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