5 Australian Natural Wonders You’ll Remember For The Rest Of Your Life

Australia is home to a few major cities sitting on the coast and the middle of the country is deserted, yet it still gets over 7 million visitors per year right now. Nearly every backpacker stays for a full year, so there must be something going on. Perhaps it’s because there are so many majestic natural wonders it’s impossible to fit them all in on a short holiday.

Here are some particularly interesting natural wonders you can’t go home without experiencing, so even if you’re only here for a few weeks you’ll want to squeeze as much of them into your itinerary as possible.

This UNESCO World Heritage Site has so many special qualities it could be considered one of the best natural wonders in Australia, even if it’s not as well knows as places like Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef. Monkey Mia is home to dolphins known for swimming towards the shore to play with tourists every day. There is a beach comprised of white shells, and it’s only one of two found on earth. The stromatolites found in Shark Bay are over 3.5 million years old. You’ll find lots of plants and animals too, but what makes it interesting is that some of them can’t be found anywhere else. All in all, there is a lot going on.

During the journey in between Brisbane and Cairns, you’ll find most people will join one of the Fraser Island tours. It’s not just because it’s the biggest sand island in the world, although that is what makes it a huge natural wonder. You will get to trek through rainforests, and they’re unique since it’s the only place they grow on a mass of sand. There has been so much sand blowing around it’s created large dunes. The beautiful beaches stretch forever, and you can drive up and down them in a 4×4 while trying your best not to get stuck. If you’ve ever wondered how the island was created, sand was pushed up from the south and eventually got stuck on an extinct volcano underneath the sea.

If you want to feel like you’ve escaped earth and you’re wandering around on an alien planet, Australia is definitely the obvious country to visit. There are lots of natural wonders to help you feel that way, but none come close to the Bungle Bungles. Way up in the Kimberly region is where you’ll find dome-shaped rock towers, which are formed through a mixture of sandstone and clay. They are a slightly dark shade of orange, and the way the domes blend into each other in odd shapes make them so appealing. If you enjoy walking you’ll love exploring them inside the Purnululu National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

If you visit a regular waterfall the water will rain down from the sky thanks to a little thing called gravity, but don’t forget we’re discussing natural wonders in Australia. Talbot Bay is the only place in the entire world where you’ll be left mesmerised by two horizontal waterfalls. Gravity works the same in Australia as everywhere else, but these horizontal waterfalls are created due to very large and powerful tidal movements. The sheer volume of water pushed through narrow cliffs plays havoc with the ocean level, and the force of the water could easily throw a boat around if you attempted to go through it.

Nearly one hundred percent of the time you see a lake it’s going to look blue. If the water is crystal clear it might look colourless, and we wouldn’t be too shocked if it looked green. What you don’t expect to see is a lake which can only be described as bright pink in colour. Lake Hillier sits on Middle Island, and its wild pink colour is actually permanent. Nobody is quite sure why it’s pink, although there are a combination of likely theories. None of them should matter to you, because you should only be interested in going for a dip so you can knock it off your bucket list, or if you’d prefer to fly over it the view from the air is spectacular.

Something You’ll Never Forget

Most people enter a momentary state of meditation when they stare at something like an ordinary waterfall. Everything goes silent and they’re completely immersed in the situation if only for a split-second. If we get so excited looking at something beautiful but ordinary, can you imagine how you would feel if you visited these Australian natural wonders? Getting to see each one of them in person is something you’ll never forget, and there happens to be dozens and dozens of other ones scattered around the country.

This is a guest post written by the very talented Jelena Djurdjevic.