The Great Barrier Reef and Other Natural Wonders of Australia

(David Attenborough)

In the outback if Australia, you can sense the great antiquity of the earth and the tiny amount of
time that humanity has been part of its history.
The preneur ulu national park is also part of the Kimberley region of northwestern Australia.
This puzzling landscape is known as the Bungle bungles. The bedrock of this plateau is very
ancient laid down in the estuaries of rivers early in the earth's history but the curious beehive
shape domes of sandstone are comparatively recent creations shaped during the last 20 million
years.
The bizarre striping is due to the way alternate layers of sandstone have developed a protective
coating of either red iron oxide or blue-green lichens. If it were not for this natural, the fragile
sandstone shapes would have been worn down long ago.
This jewel of the Kimberley’s is now one of Australia's 500 national parks. All illustrating
chapters in the country's long and dramatic geological story.
The largest of Australia's natural wonders is the great barrier reef. It fringes 1400 miles of the
tropical Queensland coast.
It's a complex mosaic of 3000 individual reefs and many small islands all built of coral and sand.
Evolved over hundreds of thousands of year. It's one of nature's most impressive creations.
The first astronauts to circle the earth reported. They could make out the color and shapes of the
individual reefs and lagoons and the vivid blue of the deeper open water in between.
Closer to the surface, the separate coral formations become discernible. Each one is a community
of different kinds of coral that between them create these intricate limestone structures.
This colony of brain coral is 20 feet in diameter and perhaps 2000 years old. Just one component
part of the largest living structure on our planet.
In contrast to Australia, new Zealand has a skyline dominated by mountains. Tallest of all is
mount cook part of the young rugged spine of south island.
The south west coast us cut through by fields. This is Milford sound 12 miles long a thousand
feet deep and flanked by the world's tallest sea cliffs.