Stirling Range National Park

The Stirling Range rises abruptly from flat farmland for around sixty-five kilometres, a line of jagged peaks reaching 1,095 metres at Bluff Knoll, the highest point in the southwest of Western Australia and the only place in the region where snow falls, which it does most years for a few hours and briefly makes national news. The range holds around fifteen hundred plant species, more than eighty found nowhere else, including mountain bells that grow only on particular peaks. Bluff Knoll is climbed on a steep six-kilometre return track. Toolbrunup and Mount Trio are harder scrambles, and the Stirling Range Drive crosses the range on gravel.

History

The Mineng and Koreng groups of the Noongar are the traditional owners, whose people have lived here for tens of thousands of years on the food of the surrounding lowlands. Matthew Flinders sighted the range in January 1802 and called it Mount Rugged, Ensign Dale climbed Toolbrunup in 1832, and in 1835 the surveyor John Septimus Roe named the range after Governor James Stirling, who never went there; sandalwood cutters made a track through it around 1848, John Forrest built a cairn on Toolbrunup in 1881, and the park's boundaries were first proposed in 1908 (Wikipedia, Stirling Range National Park).

The landscape

• Bluff Knoll - the highest peak in the southwest, on a steep return climb.
• The mountain bells - endemic plants growing only on particular peaks.
• The range profile - jagged peaks rising straight from flat farmland.
• The occasional snow - brief falls on the summits most winters.

When to go

August to November for wildflowers and clear walking; the range makes its own weather and cloud can close in fast in any season. Summer is hot on exposed rock. Snow, when it comes, is in July or August and gone within hours.

Before you go

Bluff Knoll is steep, taking three to four hours return, and the summit is often in cloud. Weather changes quickly and people have needed rescue. Dieback controls require boot cleaning at trailheads. Facilities are limited to a campground.

Nearby

The Porongurups lie south; Albany is an hour beyond them.

Key facts