Tourism Australia launched its latest international marketing campaign a couple of months ago at the Australian Tourism Exchange in Adelaide. It received a mixed response from trade and media but arguably, it has been a digital success. Click here to view the video.

“Nothing Like Australia” encouraged ordinary people to submit their images of their favourite Australian experiences. This was a clever way to involve the most important people in showcasing some of the best and quite often, lesser known, Australian tourism experiences.

The website received over 29,000 entries and it was whittled down to just 8 finalist. One of these finalist was West Australia’s very own Purnululu National Park or Bungle Bungles as it is also known. The photo entry describes:

“There’s nothing like the echo of people singing in Cathedral Gorge, the Bungle Bungles. Everyone has a go…” submitted by Brian Dullaghan, Newstead, TAS

The Bungle Bungles is located in the Eastern part of the Kimberley region, with Kununurra and Halls Creek being the closest towns. The National Park covers nearly 240,000 hectacres and the Range rises up to 578 metres above sea level and stands 200 to 300 metres above a woodland and grass-covered plain, with steep cliffs on the western face – it is magificent to see from both the ground and the air. Even though it has been home to indigenous Australians for many years, few Europeans knew about this amazing phenomena until the mid to late 1980′s. It was then World Heritage listed in 2003. The National Park is home to Echidna Chasm, Picaninny Gorge and of course Cathedral Gorge as shown in the campaign entry. There are some fantastic bush walks or visitors can opt to take a chopper flight from inside the park, or from Warmun (Turkey Creek) or a scenic fixed wing flight from Kununurra.

“Purnululu” means sandstone in the Kija Aboriginal language. The name Bungle Bungle comes either from the corruption of an Aboriginal name for the area, or from a misspelling of one of the common Kimberley grasses found here, bundle bundle grass.

In addition to how it got its name, the other most popular question about the Bungles is: how did this remarkable landscape come about? The distinctive beehive-shaped towers of the Bungle Bungle are made up of sandstones and conglomerates (rocks composed mainly of pebbles and boulders and cemented together by finer material). These sedimentary formations were deposited into the Ord Basin 375 to 350 million years ago, when active faults were altering the landscape. To the north of what is now the Bungle Bungle Range, uplift occurred along the Osmond Fault to create the Osmond Range, and to the west took place along the Halls Creek Fault. Streams and rivers eroded these ancient highlands and at their edges slopes were steep and the energy in the streams and rivers was high, allowing them to carry large boulders and dump them at the foot of the scarp. Such boulder conglomerates can today be seen in the walls of Echidna Chasm. Most of the rocks in the Bungle Bungle Range, however, were formed from sand deposited further from the highlands by lower-energy braided rivers flowing across broad plains in open valleys. As more sand accumulated, the older channels consolidated to form sandstone.

The distinctive beehive-shaped landforms seen today have been produced by uplift and erosion during the last 20 million years. Contrary to its solid appearance, the sandstone is extremely fragile. The weight of overlying rock holds the sand grains in place, but when this is removed, the sandstones are easily eroded and the rounded tops reflect this lack of internal strength. Water flowing over the surface will exploit any weaknesses or irregularities in the rock, such as cracks or joints, and rapidly erodes the narrow channels that separate the towers.

One of the most obvious features of the sandstones is the alternating orange and black or grey banding. The darker bands are on the more permeable layers of rock (which means water is able to move through them with relative ease). They allow moisture to seep through to the rock surface, promoting a dark algal growth. The less permeable layers in between are covered with a patina of iron and manganese staining, creating the orange bands. These outer coatings (the rock beneath is a whitish colour) help to protect the lower parts of the towers from erosion. (source: www.dec.gov.au)

Channel Seven Reveal the campaign winner

So back to the campaign…
The eight finalist experiences were shown on a special Channel 7 show ‘Holiday Hot Spots’ culminating in the winning entry being announced…
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

...and the winner is...

“There’s nothing like going on the back of a camel at dawn to see the sunrise in the heart of my beloved Australia – Uluru”. Rookie Alvarez, Condell Park, NSW