Mount Augustus is located roughly 1,000 km north of Perth, in the

Mount Augustus National Park Mount Augustus National Park is located 852 km north of Perth, 490 km by road east of Carnarvon and 390 km northwest of Meekatharra, in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. Mount Augustus itself, the feature around which th ...

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. The name is also given to the neighbouring pastoral lease, Mount Augustus Station. The local Wadjari people call it Burringurrah, after a

Dreamtime The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal beliefs. It was originally used by Francis Gillen, quickly adopted by his co ...

figure, a young boy who was speared and turned into a rock. It has been a sacred site for thousands of years. It is a prominent

inselberg An inselberg or monadnock () is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. In Southern Africa a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, a ...

that stands above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...

, or approximately above the surrounding plain, and covers an area of . It has a central ridge which is almost long.

Monolith–monocline distinction

Mount Augustus is widely claimed in tourist promotional and information literature as the "world's largest monolith", but the claim does not originate from the geological literature, nor is it substantiated by any other scholarly research. Mt. Augustus is more than twice the size of

Uluru Uluru (; pjt, Uluṟu ), also known as Ayers Rock ( ) and officially gazetted as UluruAyers Rock, is a large sandstone formation in the centre of Australia. It is in the southern part of the Northern Territory, southwest of Alice Spring ...

. Unlike Uluru, which is a

monolith A monolith is a geological feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock, such as some mountains. For instance, Savandurga mountain is a monolith mountain in India. Erosion usually exposes the geological formations, which are often ma ...

and, in general, devoid of plant growth, Mt. Augustus is a monocline (an asymmetrical anticline).

1894 gold rush

There was a gold rush in the 1890s due to local geology.

Flora and fauna

Wattles, cassias and eremophilas dominate the plant life and the animal life include

emu The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus '' Dromaius''. The emu ...

red kangaroo The red kangaroo (''Osphranter rufus'') is the largest of all kangaroos, the largest terrestrial mammal native to Australia, and the largest extant marsupial. It is found across mainland Australia, except for the more fertile areas, such as sou ...

goanna A goanna is any one of several species of lizards of the genus '' Varanus'' found in Australia and Southeast Asia. Around 70 species of ''Varanus'' are known, 25 of which are found in Australia. This varied group of carnivorous reptiles ranges ...

s, euros and birds of prey. There are over 100 species of birds on and around Mount Augustus.

Walking tracks

The climb to the summit and back can take up to 5 hours, and there are two trails (one class 4 and the other a class 5) to get there. There are a number of walking tracks to explore. There have been a number of deaths on the summit walking trail. An inquest into the deaths by government authorities suggests to close the summit trail between September and March for the sake of unwary hikers who do not appreciate the treacherous conditions.

Aboriginal history and rock engravings

Evidence of early Aboriginal habitation is depicted in the rock engravings around Mount Augustus. Many of the Dreamtime stories of the local Aboriginal Wajarri people can be viewed in the rock engravings at Mundee, Ooramboo and Beedoboondu. All of these are accessible on the loop walking trail.

Notes