Mount Augustus

Nowhere near Augusta at the bottom of WA, Mt. Augustus is located 850km north of Perth midway between the Great Northern and the North West Coastal highways.


View of Mt Augustus from the Tourist resort	Grey butcher bird

Mt Augustus is the biggest single rock in the world and everyone around this area is pretty proud of it! It stands 717metres above the surrounding plain.

The average rainfall is 8 inches which falls during the months of November to February. But there is no shortage of water as there is ample underground water which the locals and the huge stations rely on.

This rock is twice as big as Uluru!

The sandstone and conglomerate strata of Mt Augustus are continuous over a wide area and are from the Upper Proterozoic age making them 1,000 million years old. The granite rock that lies beneath Mt Augustus is 1,650 million years old.

Why have I chosen this as a Hotspot? Because you can have the satisfaction of climbing the biggest rock in the world all the way to the top! It is not an easy walking path, I would class it as medium grade. We got up at 4.00am to drive the 40 minute drive from the camp ground to the start at Beedoboondu (Flintstone). We started climbing by 5.15am to avoid the heat of the day later, we were very pleased we did. (Great tip from the locals).

We found a great spot to look out over the empty waterfall where we watched flocks of pink and grey galahs, crested pigeons, zebra finches, and other small honeyeaters, all coming and going for a drink in the tiny pools of water that were left. This was a perfect lookout and we really enjoyed sitting there. We also saw a nightjar on the road when we arrived and there were emu’s, kangaroos that lept out of the shade at the last minute (and scared the daylights out of us), butterflies, orb spiders, diving beetles and pond insects, weird flies, and two different types of lizards here such as the fire-tail skink.


Crested pigeon	Yellow throated miner

I noticed that most of the plants were wattles, mulga, and some river gums around the waterfall. There had not been much rain so there were no fields of everlastings.

The recommended climbing time is 6 hours return for the summit walk and I suggest you take the rangers walk unless you are very fit.


When you make it to the top you add your own rock to this pile and sign a visitors book.	View from on top of Mt Augustus. A Wedge tailed eagle soared effortlessly above .

Also at Mt Augustus we saw some Aboriginal engravings. I was really keen to see these, and it was a pity that there wasn’t more information about these engravings at the sites.


Engravings from Beedoboondu	You had to squeeze under a big rock to see these engravings. But it was worth it as it was nice and cool.


Engravings at Mundee	Engravings from Ooramboo

You can’t talk about Mt Augustus without talking about the locals. They were so friendly, genuine, and helpful with our car tyres and we really enjoyed the chats over a beer in the bar.

A pink and grey Galah. Another one of those friendly locals!

A Desert Tree Frog
Another friendly local that greeted you every time you went to the loo. How could you be scared of this cutie. The toilets and showers were great!

Don’t expect much in the way of facilities at the tourist resort but they do have good showers (with plenty of water) and a pub. Buying food supplies wasn’t possible which surprised us so be careful on how you plan your food. There is an aboriginal community about 40km away and they have a small supermarket where you can buy most things. We tented as we found the accommodation to expensive. And boy does the wind blow at night. You can hear the wind coming like a freight train across the land, we were sure we were going to blow away but the trusty tent survived.