Mount Warning
Wollumbin
The first place on mainland Australia to see the sunrise each day
On the lands of the Bundjalung people.
The dramatic volcanic plug at the centre of the ancient Tweed Shield Volcano, rising 1,156 metres above the surrounding caldera. Known as Wollumbin to the Bundjalung people, it is the first point on mainland Australia to catch the sunrise each morning. The summit track is currently closed at the request of traditional owners.
Mount Warning, or Wollumbin, is the erosion-resistant central plug of the Tweed Shield Volcano, which erupted around 23 million years ago and was once twice the height of the current peak. Over millions of years the softer surrounding rock eroded away, leaving the hard rhyolite core standing as a dramatic peak visible from across the Northern Rivers and Gold Coast hinterland.
The mountain sits inside Wollumbin National Park on Bundjalung country. The Bundjalung people consider it a place of great cultural significance and have long requested that visitors not climb to the summit. In 2022 the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service formally closed the summit track to respect these wishes. Visitors can still walk the lower Lyrebird Track, a 200-metre return path through subtropical rainforest at the base of the mountain.
The broader Tweed caldera landscape around the mountain is World Heritage listed as part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia. The caldera rim forms a dramatic horseshoe of mountains including the Border Ranges, Nightcap Range and Springbrook Plateau, all of which have their own walking tracks and lookouts with views back to the central peak.
The surrounding villages of Murwillumbah, Uki and Tyalgum are centres of the Northern Rivers food and arts scene, with farmers' markets, galleries and farm-gate cafes that make the area worth visiting even without the summit climb.
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- Background text summarised from Wikipedia: Mount Warning , licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Images (3)
- Fearnleigh Montague - Mount Warning, New South Wales - Googl... · Fearnleigh Montague – creator Details on Google Ar... · Public domain
- ISS021-E-22356 - View of the Northern Territory.jpg · Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. J... · Public domain
- ISS052-E-8512 (Mount St. Helens).jpg · Astronaut photograph ISS052-E-8512 was acquired on... · Public domain
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