Bunda Cliff: The end of the world?

The Great Australian Bight in southern Australia has a place called the Nullarbor Plain. With an area of ​​270,000 square kilometers and extending about 1000km from east to west, this is considered the largest limestone domain in the world .

The area is flat so that the 483km of the railway passing through is completely on a straight line. On the surface of the Nullbarbor plain there are some slight subsidence and dents, each time the rain drops, the precipitation particles here have gradually dissolved some limestone; but in general, this plain looks completely flat and without trees.

The last point of the plain Nullarbor is the Bunda cliff , a 200km long cliff stretching around Great Australia Bight Bay and is a spectacular and great natural creation.

Bunda cliffs form the southern bank of the Nullarbor plain, which is very far from the hinterland. The white part underneath the bottom of the cliff is called Wilson Bluff Limestone - part of the sea floor that dates back to a long time when Australia began to separate from Antarctica about 65 million years ago. This limestone Wilson Bluff is over 300m thick but only its upper part is seen at the Bunda cliff.

Above the Limestone Wilson Bluff are brown, gray and whitish glass or limestone rocks with some fossil aquifers of marine species including mollusks. The surface of this vertical wall is a layer of hard sand that ranges from about 1.6 million to 100 thousand years ago.

Bunda cliffs are from 60 to 120m high, with the best view from the air; however, visitors can also see it from the Eyre highway east of Eucla and the west side of the Nullarbor motel.

Eyre Highway is the main road connecting Australia's western and southern parts. The name of this highway is named after Edward John Eyre. In February 1841, Edward John Eyre, along with John Baxter and three other Aboriginal people, left Fowlers Harbor, crossing the Nullarbor Plain to Albany in Western Australia. Due to the lack of drinking water and many other difficulties, this group of people had a conflict, two Aboriginal guys shot John Baxter, and then fled. Edward John Eyre and the rest of the aboriginals continued their journey and finally in June 1841, they completed their journey. In exactly a century later, in 1941, the Eyre highway was opened.

On the Eyre highway there are 5 main points that can see the Bunda cliff. These locations are marked with signs and have access to gravel. However, the western viewing position is more famous because visitors can walk to a place with protruding rock from the wall and therefore, this position has a more favorable view.

In the east of Great Australia Bight Bay, tourists can sit for hours watching the Southern Right Whale swimming under the Bunda cliff. This is one of the largest whales in the world, migrating from Antarctica to the southern coast of Australia to give birth, and stay here for several months until the elephant is big enough.