Nearest town or city Cooktown Phone +61 13 74 68 | Area 7.81 km (3.0 sq mi) | |
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Established 1980 (Register of the National Estate) Managing authorities Website Black Mountain (Kalkajaka) National Park See also Protected areas of Queensland Address Rossville QLD 4895, Australia Hours Open today · Open 24 hoursFridayOpen 24 hoursSaturdayOpen 24 hoursSundayOpen 24 hoursMondayOpen 24 hoursTuesdayOpen 24 hoursWednesdayOpen 24 hoursThursdayOpen 24 hours Similar Mount Cook National, Endeavour River National, Grey Peaks National Park, Three Islands National, Millstream Falls National | ||
Black Mountain (Kalkajaka) National Park is a 781 hectare protected area in Queensland, (Australia), 25 km south west of Cooktown. It is managed and protected as a national park under the Nature Conservation Act 1992.
Contents
The main feature of the park is the mass of granite boulders, some the size of houses. The absence of soil between the boulders and rocks create a maze of gaps and passages, which can be used to penetrate inside the mountain. These rocks can become extremely hot.
The area has a bad reputation as numerous people and those searching for the missing have disappeared without trace giving Black Mountain the nickname ‘mountain of death’. The Mulligan Highway marks the western border of the park.
Natural history
The national park's distinctive hard granite boulders and range originally formed out of magma that first slowly solidified under the Earth's crust about 250 million years ago.
The softer land surfaces above the solidified magma eroded away over time, leaving the magma's fractured top to be exposed as a mountain of grey granite boulders blackened by a film of microscopic blue-green algae growing on the exposed surfaces. Colder rains falling on the dark, heated granite boulders causes the boulders to progressively fracture, break, and slowly disintegrate, sometimes explosively.
Cultural history
The National Park's "Black Mountains" are a heavily significant feature of the Kuku Nyungkal people's cultural landscape known locally to Aboriginal Australians as Kalkajaka (trans: "place of spear").
Queensland's Department of Environment and Natural Resources has been advised of at least four sites of particular mythological significance within the "Black Mountains" as follows:
There are at least four sites of religious or mythological significance on the mountain. These are the Kambi, a large rock with a cave where flying-foxes are found; Julbanu, a big grey kangaroo-shaped rock looking toward Cooktown; Birmba, a stone facing toward Helenvale where sulphur-crested cockatoos are seen; and a taboo place called Yirrmbal near the foot of the range.
The Black Mountains also features strongly in local, more non-Aboriginal cultural landscapes, some of which has also been described by Queensland's Department of Environment and Resource Management as follows:
When European colonists arrived late last century, they added to the many Aboriginal legends of the area with a few of their own. Stories abound of people, horses and whole mobs of cattle disappearing into the labyrinth of rocks, never to be seen again
It is believed that those who vanished most probably fell into one of the chasms under the rocks or after entering one of these places became lost.
Ecology
The Black Mountains are located at the northernmost end of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, where world heritage listed wet tropical forests meet drier savanna woodlands - making it a natural refuge for once more widespread, now isolated relict fauna.
Queensland's Department of Environment and Resource Management advises, for instance, the relatively small, unusual "Black Mountain" environment is the world's only habitat for at least three animals: the Black Mountain boulderfrog or rock haunting frog (Cophixalus saxatilis); the Black Mountain skink (Carlia scirtetis); and the Black Mountain gecko (Nactus galgajuga). This makes the area one of Australia's most restricted habitats for endemic fauna.
Depiction by History Channel
The discussion of mysterious facets of the Black Mountain area was featured in an episode of the Ancient Aliens television series on the History Channel. The series claimed that the hills of the Kalkajaka could have been formed by ancient astronauts who piled the huge boulders to cover up a massive mining operation, or, alternatively, that the boulders were debris formed as a result of the mining operation.
Facilities
Camping is not permitted in the park. There are no walking tracks and no facilities for picnics. There is a viewing platform that features interpretive displays.