Nullarbor Plain

Nullarbor is the light tan semi-circular area near the coastline, 2002

Murrawijinie cave system seen from inside. It is a karst system, formed by water running through the limestone. Murrawijinie means "bloody hands": the caves were used by indigenous people who left their ochre hand stencils on the cave walls

Nullarbor Plain (Latin: nullus, "no", and arbor, "tree") is an area of flat, dry land in southern Australia on the coastline of the Great Australian Bight.

It is the world's largest single piece of limestone, and occupies an area of about 200,000 square kilometres (77,000 sq mi). At its widest point, it stretches about 1,100 kilometres (684 mi) from east to west between South Australia (SA) and Western Australia (WA).

As to what causes these huge and distinctive limestone areas, no-one knows. Perhaps it is significant that one of the best-known area, the Yukatan, was in or near a hit by a huge meteorite. As much as 50% of the world's hydrocarbon reserves are in carbonate rock, and much of this is in porous karst systems.

Nullarbor Plain Media

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  A road sign displaying the distance from Eucla and Ceduna*(Regarding the information on the road sign, this stretch of the Eyre Highway lies not in the Nullarbor Plain, but south of the plain, in the Hampton bioregion of Western Australia, on the Roe Plains, somewhere around Mundrabilla. The Nullarbor Plain stretches behind the hills or, rather, the Hampton Tableland, seen in the background)

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  Sign defining the edge of the plain at the western side. (This photograph depicts Nullarbor Roadhouse, seen from the west. Nullarbor Roadhouse lies on the South Australian side of the Eyre Highway, at the eastern edge of the Nullarbor Plain as well as Nullarbor National Park, which both extend miles farther west into Western Australian territory.)

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  Rainbow over the Nullarbor Plain

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  Vandalised road sign designating the beginning of the 90-mile (or 146.6 km) straight section of the highway

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  Tree full of tress in "the middle of nowhere", the Nullarbor, Western Australia

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  The group that walked from Port Augusta to Norseman, including the Nullarbor Plain, in 1985

Further reading

• Bolam, Anthony Gladstone, 1893–1966. The trans-Australian wonderland Melbourne : Modern Printing, (many editions in the early 20th century)
• Edmonds, Jack 1976. Nullarbor crossing: with panorama photographs by Brian Gordon. Perth. West Australian Newspapers, Periodicals Division. ISBN 0-909699-09-7

Other websites

Media related to Nullarbor at Wikimedia Commons

• Nullarbor Net
• Information about crossing the Nullarbor