Sandstone towers shaped like beehives standing 250 metres out of the grass in the East Kimberley, banded orange and grey all the way up. The stripes are alive, or half of them are: the orange bands are layers where iron has oxidised in sandstone that dries too fast for anything to grow, and the grey bands are cyanobacteria living on the surface of layers that hold moisture. So the pattern is a moisture map of the rock, drawn in bacteria. Aboriginal people have known and used this country for many thousands of years, and it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. Access is a 53 km four-wheel-drive track off the Great Northern Highway that takes about three hours and is only open in the dry season, 1 April to 31 December, or a helicopter from Bellburn. About 300 km south of Kununurra.
East Kimberley, Western Australia
See it on the map
