Rudall River National Park

At 1,283,706 hectares, the Rudall River National Park is the largest national park in Western Australia and one of the largest in the world. In fact, it is more than two-and-a-half times a large as the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. But as well as being so vast, it is also one of the most remote places in the world. The park sits on the boundary between the Great Sandy and Little Sandy Deserts and includes the watershed of the Rudall River. Salt lakes, which are part of a palaeodrainage system, are characteristic of these desert regions. Lakes Dora, Blanche, Winifred, George and Auld form a U-shaped group east of Rudall River, with only Lakes Dora and Blanche lying inside the park boundary. Lake Dora is 198 metres above sea level and it is only for a short time after particularly heavy rains that there is any appreciable quantity of surface water in this or any of the other lakes. Sand dunes cover much of the desert areas in the eastern and south-western parts of the park. They form parallel ridges of between 20-40 metres high, trending mainly south-east to north-west, lying between 200 metres and six kilometres apart and often extending for more than 40 kilometres in length. The central rocky area, between the two desert areas, is flatter and it is here where the main tracks cross the park: from Telfer in the north to the Talawana Track in the south, and westwards from the Rudall River crossing to Hanging Rock, on the western boundary of the park.