Windjana Gorge

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Windjana Gorge
Windjana Gorge.jpg
Windjana Gorge
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Windjana Gorge
Geography
Coordinates 17°24′32″S124°57′28″E / 17.40889°S 124.95778°E / -17.40889; 124.95778 Coordinates: 17°24′32″S124°57′28″E / 17.40889°S 124.95778°E / -17.40889; 124.95778

Windjana Gorge is a gorge in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It is located within the Windjana Gorge National Park. [1]

The gorge was formed by the Lennard River having eroded away a 3.5 kilometres (2 mi) section of the Napier Range. The range was formed over 300 million years ago and is composed of Devonian limestone. The gorge is over 100m wide and the walls are between 30 metres (98 ft) and 10 metres (33 ft) in height.

The area is a popular tourist destination and can be easily hiked through in the dry season. The gorge has permanent waterholes and supports a habitat of monsoonal vegetation. Freshwater crocodiles are known to frequent the area. [2]

Travellers are able to see fossils of shells and other marine creatures on some of the rock walls.

History

The locale is prominent in the recent history of the Bunuba people of the Kimberly region. In the 1890s, the Bunuba man Jandamarra, a former stockman, led an armed insurrection. In late 1894, a posse of 30 or so heavily armed police and settlers attacked Jandamarra and his followers in Windjana Gorge. Jandamarra was wounded but escaped.

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Jandamarra or Tjandamurra, known to European settlers as Pigeon, was an Indigenous Australian of the Bunuba tribe who led one of many organised armed insurrections against the European colonisation of Australia. Initially utilised as a tracker for the police, he became a fugitive when he was forced to capture his own people. He led a three-year campaign against police and European settlers, achieving legendary status for his hit and run tactics and his abilities to hide and disappear. Jandamarra was eventually killed by another tracker at Tunnel Creek on 1 April 1897. His body was buried by his family at the Napier Range where it was placed inside a boab tree. Jandamarra's life has been the subject of two novels, Ion Idriess's Outlaws of the Leopold (1952) and Mudrooroo's Long Live Sandawarra (1972), and a stage play.

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The Richenda River is a river in the Kimberley of Western Australia.

Bunuba

The Bunuba are a group of Indigenous Australians and are one of the traditional owners of the southern West Kimberley, in Western Australia. Many now live in and around the town of Fitzroy Crossing.

Jandamarra's War is a 2011 Australian drama style documentary that tells the story of Jandamarra, a famous Aboriginal Australian warrior of the Bunuba people from Western Australia.

Devonian Reef

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The Unggumi, also written Ongkomi, are an indigenous Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australian.

References

  1. "Windjana Gorge". Gazetteer of Australia online. Geoscience Australia, Australian Government.
  2. "Kimberley Australia - Windjana Gorge National Park". 2009. Retrieved 25 February 2009.