Warrumbungles

P1p3p5

Bread Knife, an exposed gangue with a height of almost 100 meters in the Warrumbungle Range

Called The Warrumbungle Range, also Warrumbungles or Warrumbungle - basalt Liverpool Ranges, is a mountainous country in northern New South Wales, Australia. It extends over 130 km in a north-westerly direction and is of volcanic origin. The name comes from the Warrumbungle Aboriginal word meaning " crooked mountains ".

Location

The nearest town is Coonabarabran. He can be reached via the Newell Highway, which connects Melbourne with Brisbane.

History

Thousands of years before European colonization came three tribes of Aborigines in this area, the Kamilaroi, Wiradjuri and Weilan that differed in their languages ​​. Documentary evidence of their presence in the Warrumbungles are stone chips, they left behind when they were producing their stone axes and lived in caves.

The first European who penetrated into this area in 1818, was the explorer John Oxley on his second expedition inland. He called the hill country Arbuthnot's Range; however, did not survive the name the time and the original name of the Aboriginal prevailed. Soon after came European settlers Oxley, although this is merely cleared the valleys and the lower slopes and used it as pasture land. This is testified old fences, some ruins and foundations of buildings and huts in the Warrumbungle National Park.

Geology

The base of the volcanoes emerged 180 million years ago, when there was a lake and sediments were deposited, which were solidified by diagenesis on sandstone. This sandstone is called Pilliga sandstone.

The mountain country consists mainly of heavily eroded shield volcanoes that were active before 18-15 million years ago and were formed on the sandstone. The shield volcanoes caused by numerous Vulkansaubrüche over long periods.

Mountains

In Warrumbungle area there are numerous mountains like Belougery Spire, Belougery Split Rock, Crater Bluff, Bluff Mountain, Bread Knife ( bread knife ), and Mount Exmouth. Bread Knife is a volcanic gangue, a nearly vertical free-standing rock wall with a height of almost 100 meters, which is very rare.

Through the mountain area leads a network of hiking trails. Since the 1930s, the mountain area of hikers and climbers will be investigated.