Six of the best: Awe-inspiring Australian rock formations

THE PINNACLES

Like stubby teeth in the worn-down gums of Australia, the limestone outcrops of The Pinnacles stick up from the sands of Nambung National Park some 250 kilometres north of Perth. The tens of thousands of pinnacles, some up to five metres in height, are best enjoyed in early morning or late afternoon, when the sun makes them glow with honey and orange hues against yellow dunes. The scenic drive is accessible by ordinary two-wheel-drive. Between August and October, this seemingly hostile environment comes alive with wildflowers: like the rocks themselves, another natural wonder emerging from the vast outback. See www.australiascoralcoast.com

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DEVIL'S MARBLES

Local Aboriginals believe the rock formations they call Karlu Karlu are the eggs of the Rainbow Serpent, said to have created the Earth during the Dreamtime. They form one of the world's oldest religious sites, located near Wauchope in the Northern Territory. These chunks of granite, buried in a sea of sandstone, have been exfoliated by wind and sand to their current spheres, some of which are four metres in diameter. A few have been split apart by extremes of desert temperature between night and day, and in another few million years, just a few pebbles will be left. See www.northernterritory.com

HANGING ROCK

Hanging Rock was favoured as a hangout for bushrangers but became an Australian icon on the release of the eerie 1975 movie Picnic at Hanging Rock, which centred on the unresolved disappearance of schoolgirls in 1900 at this site near the town of Mount Macedon in Victoria. The real Hanging Rock – properly known as Mount Diogenes – is technically a mamelon, an outpouring of magma now frozen in place and weathered over the eons into twisted rock formations. It's popular for its walking tracks, and the reserve that surrounds it is home to koalas, possums, wallabies and kookaburras. See www.visitmacedonranges.com

KATA TJUTA

The worn and eroded humps of The Olgas, as they were previously known, seem to slumber on the flat plains of the southern Northern Territory, sunk in the quiet introspection of old age. The vast silence is interrupted only by the gossip of insects at night and the scolding of gaudy parrots by day. Kata Tjuta means "many heads", and the 36 steep domes of rock provide a walk among red valleys which have been a site of Aboriginal ceremonies for millennia. Views of the outcrops at a distance provide a glorious outback panorama, particularly at sunset. See www.parksaustralia.gov.au