Purnululu National Park is a national park in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987. The first tour company to do tours of the bungle bungle was Kimberly Eastern tours in 1980, the first year they only had one customer! The Bungle Bungle was declared a national park in 1987 and only become world heritage listed in 2007.
Location
It is located in north east of Western Australia. The nearest major town is Kununurra to the north, or Halls Creek to the south.
Purnululu is the name given to the sandstone area of the Bungle Bungle Range by the Kija Aboriginal people. The name means sandstone or may be a corruption of bundle grass. The range, lying fully within the park, has elevations as high as 578 metres above sea level. It is famous for the sandstone domes, unusual and visually striking with their striping in alternating orange and grey bands. The banding of the domes is due to differences in clay content and porosity of the sandstone layers: the orange bands consist of oxidised iron compounds in layers that dry out too quickly for cyanobacteria to multiply; the grey bands are composed of cyanobacteria growing on the surface of layers of sandstone where moisture accumulates.
Access
Access to the park by road is via Spring Creek Track, from the Great Northern Highway approximately 250 km south of Kununurra, to the track's end at the visitor centre. The track is 53 km long and is usable only in the dry season (about 1 April to 31 December), and only by four-wheel-drive (4WD) vehicles. Safely navigating it takes approximately 3 hours. Access by air is less demanding; helicopter flights are available, from Bellburn Airstrip in the national park, and light aircraft, from both Warmun, 187 km south of Kununurra, and Kununurra.
