THROUGH red dust clouds kicked up by our traveling companions up front, we caught sight of the enormous mountain of rock emerging in the distance out of flat scrubby plains. We were driving the 834km Kingsford Smith Mail Run from Meekatharra to Carnarvon in the heart of Western Australia’s Gascoyne region. Our destinations: Mount Augustus and the Kennedy Ranges.
Burringurrah is the indigenous name for Mount Augustus, the biggest rock in the world. The Wajarri people’s Dreamtime says that Burringurrah was a boy who ran away from tribal initiation. If you look at the rock at the right angle, you can see shape of a boy lying down.
Mount Augustus is nowhere as well known as the Red Centre’s Uluru. There are also similarities and differences between the two rocks. Both Mount Augustus and Uluru are inselbergs or island mountains. Mount Augustus is an asymmetrical anticline, a rock formation that is folded up like an arch. Uluru is a monolith, a massive single rock, bare of vegetation. Mount Augustus is almost double the size of
