Elevation 1,009 m Parent range Great Dividing Range | Mountain range Great Dividing Range | |
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Similar Thornton Peak, Ngarrabullgan, Mount Bartle Frere, Mount Bellenden Ker | ||
Mount Pieter Botte, also known as Ngalba-bulal, Alpaboolal (meaning big top), or Barbar (meaning elder sister) is a mountain in the tableland region behind Cape Tribulation in Far North Queensland, Australia. It was named in 1848 by Captain Owen Stanley of the survey ship HMS Rattlesnake. The name was chosen by those on board the Rattlesnake. (from Voyage of Rattlesnake page 104) because of its resemblance to Peter Botte Mountain, a famous peak on the island of Mauritius. The mountain is part of the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Site.
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Map of Mount Pieter Botte, Bloomfield QLD 4895, Australia
Australian Aborigines in the area were reported to believe that the mountain was home to their ancestral spirits.
Six Kuku Yalanji people, led by an elder, guided three Europeans up the climb in October 1896, the visiting botanist-cum-explorer Dudley Le Souef, Frank Hislop and Mr. Anderson. They climbed to the platform below the summit of Mount Pieter Botte. This was the first recorded European party to climb the peak. The peak itself is a sheer-sided granite outcrop which was not climbed.
On 26 August 1938, Walter Mason, Wilfred Knight and Douglas Mason also climbed the tableland behind Cape Tribulation to the base of Mount Pieter Botte.
Flora and fauna
Le Souef's expedition recorded riflebirds, catbirds, pittas, Spalding's orthonyx, shrikethrushes, Australian brushturkeys, Quoy's butcher bird, sulphur-crested cockatoos, superb fruit doves and tree kangaroos.
The wingless water bug Austrovelia queenslandica is known only from this area. Armoured Mistfrogs (Litoria lorica), a critically endangered species, have been observed in Roaring Meg Creek, just below Mount Pieter Botte.
A species of a Medicosma mountain rainforest understorey tree is known only from one sample in the Mount Pieter Botte area. Eidothea zoexylocarya is a large tree that only grows in the mountain rainforests of north-eastern Queensland, including Mount Pieter Botte. Romnalda ophiopogonoides is an endangered plant with only around 500 individuals known, including some around Roaring Meg Creek near the mountain.