Looking for an unusual, remote and relatively undiscovered area to explore? Head for Australia’s Bungle Bungles.

The Bungle Bungles are a massif in Western Australia's Purnululu National Park that has eroded into hundreds of dome-shaped, orange-and-black-banded sandstone formations. Some are hundreds of feet high, others as small as a house.

If you’ve never heard of the Bungle Bungles, you have plenty of company. Until 1982 they were known to only a few Australians — mainly cattle stockmen and the local Aborigines. Rising from the middle of hundreds of square miles of remote, rugged, uninviting wilderness, the formations are well off the beaten path.

In addition, a rolling landscape helps hide them. Just 10 miles (16 kilometers) away they’re out of sight.

Recognizing their uniqueness, Australia created the Purnululu National Park in 1987 to protect the Bungles. Purnululu is the Aboriginal name for the formations.


How they were created

Rainwater shaped the Bungle Bungles. The massif formed some 360 million years ago, with the rivers and streams that flow out from the Kimberly Plateau. For millions of years these waterways carried eroded sandy sediment, depositing it over a flood plain that would eventually become the Bungles.

As new layers of sediment piled up, pressure on the lower layers compressed and cemented them into a sedimentary type of rock called sandstone.

About 20 million years ago, rainwater began eroding the sandstone massif that had built up. While much of Australia is desert dry, the Kimberly Plateau has a monsoon climate. Between December and March an average 25 inches (64 centimeters) of rain falls. Sandstone is permeable, and the rainwater not only pelted the massif’s surface but it also seeped down into the rock.

Thus rainwater eroded the massif in two ways. First, it shaped the stone into beehive formations surrounded by a maze of canyons. It also dissolved the cement binding the sandstone’s microscopic quartz grains. Now only the interlocking of the quartz grains themselves hold the sandstone together, leaving it quite fragile — so fragile that you can break the Bungles rock with your hands.

A distinctive feature of the Bungles are orange and black bands wrapping around the formations. The Bungles’ bands are a typical characteristic of sandstone. They reveal the layers of sediment that hardened into rock. The orange tinge results from small amounts of clay and iron oxide that form on the surface when erosion exposes the original sand to the atmosphere. Algae growing where the rainwater has seeped through the rock produces the black bands.

Another distinctive feature is the size of the formations. The 22-mile-by-15-mile (35-kilometer-by-24 kilometer) Bungle Bungles dwarf their more famous brethren, two-mile-long (three-kilometer-long) Ayers Rock.


The Bungle Bungles’ ecosystem

The Bungles have a unique ecosystem. The formations occupy a transition zone between Australia’s arid center and the tropical rain forests of the north. Such transition zones between ecosystems are called ecotones.

The plains surrounding the rock formations reveal the arid reach from the south with open, shrubby grasslands of sharp-bladed, golden spinifex. But here and there you’ll see patches of wooded savanna with characteristics of the northern forests.

Atop the sun-baked rock formations themselves flowering desert shrubs and short acacia and grevillia trees thrive. Within the Bungle Bungles, in the deep gorges, you’ll discover mainly tropical vegetation. Rock fig vines cling to the steep walls and fill crevices. Palm trees are plentiful, including a newly discovered species of palm — the Purnululu Fan Palm.


How to see the Bungle Bungles

Much of the Bungle Bungles are inaccessible. The fragile sandstone will not support climbers, so you’ll have to stick to those gorges and dry creek beds open to visitors, such as Outstation Canyon and Mini-Palm Canyon. From the south, one of the best ways into the Bungles is to follow Piccaninny Creek, which is waterless during the dry season.

If you enter from the north, perhaps through Echidna Chasm, you’ll notice the formations are made of a different type of sedimentary rock. Those rivers and streams that had so many millions of years ago laid down their sandstone-forming sediment had first deposited upstream their cargo of heavier material — pebbles and stones rounded from tumbling along the watercourse. These stones and the gravel and sand surrounding them also compacted and cemented, creating a rock known as conglomerate. You can readily see the rounded stones and pebbles in the conglomerate walls.


Getting to the Purnululu National Park

The Bungle Bungles rise from one of Australia’s most remote and rugged regions. They are located in northeastern Western Australia just west of the border with the Northern Territory. The nearest sizable town, 162 miles (260 kilometers) north of Purnululu National Park, is Kununurra — an Aboriginal word meaning big waters. A town since only the 1960s, Kununurra is an administrative center. About 68 miles (110 kilometers) south lies the small bush town of Halls Creek.

The easiest way to see the Bungles is to fly over them. Firms in both Kununurra and Halls Creek offer air tours. If you want a close-up look, you’ll have to get to Purnululu National Park in a four-wheeled vehicle. Much of your travel will be on rugged dirt roads. The park has no facilities whatsoever, so you’ll need to carry camping gear, food and water.

To travel independently, firms in Darwin can outfit you. Unless you’re an experienced hand in coping with Australia’s Outback, you’ll probably do best to sign up with a small-group, guide-accompanied tour. Travel agents and tour firms in Darwin can make your arrangements.


When to go

The best time to visit is May through June, during the dry season, or The Dry as the Aussies say. The park is closed during the rainy season, around January to April. The December-March Australian summer (the seasons are reversed in the southern hemisphere, remember) is when the rains come, and Outback roads are prone to flash floods. In addition, summer temperatures in the area often climb to over 100° F (38° C).


Helpful resources

Should you want put Purnululu National Park on your itinerary before leaving home, contact one of these tour operators.

• Adventure Center — http://www.adventurecenter.com
• Australian Eco-Adventures — http://www.ozeco.com.au
• Lets Trek Australia — http://www.letstrek.com.au