Caressed by the sun, peaks and canyons of the Bungle Bungle Mountains form a dreamscape, that shines as if it had been lit from the interior. Domes striped like a tiger’s coat, rises to a surreal grandeur in Ord River floodplain in eastern Australia, a land that recalls the splendor of underwater .
But these striped cliffs and ridges are popping out in an area so isolated, that until in the ’80s only a few travelers saw them. And today, most tourists admire them from the air. Situated in the vast Kimberley region, filled with rare human settlements, the massive covers an area of 450 square kilometers. In most of the year is intense heat, with temperatures up to 40 degrees Celsius in the shade.
Along the dry season does not rain at all, and rivers turn into a slender strand of ponds. Then, in the rainy season (November-March), everything turns green. Water flows from lakes in cascades, and cyclones in the Indian Ocean bring so much rain, that the field is flooded and roads becom
e impassable to the Bungle Bungle.
The massive’s story begins with 400 million years ago when the region have made huge deposits of sediment taken from the mountains to the north then, now missing. Later, rivers have dug canals in soft rock, with time, they have deepened, joined together, and the wind and the water have carved them, leaving behind the isolates sandstone ridges today.
