Mountain range in SW Western Australia; extends 64 km/40 mi parallel with SW coast; rises to 1109 m/3638 ft at Bluff Knoll.
The Stirling Range is a range of mountains and hills in the South West region of Western Australia, 337 km south-east of Perth. Notable features include Toolbrunup, Bluff Knoll (the tallest peak for a thousand kilometers or more in any direction and most popular tourist attraction), and a silhouette called The Sleeping Lady which is visible from the Porongurup Range.
The Stirling Ranges is one of the richest areas for flora in the world. Ninety families, 384 genera, and over 1500 plant species occur in the Stirling Ranges, 87 of which are found nowhere else.
The Stirling Range is protected by the Stirling Range National Park, which was gazetted in 1913, and has an area of 1159 km².
Geology
It was formerly thought that the Stirling Range was a Precambrian mountain range, like all other mountain ranges in Western Australia. It is now known that the range was actually uplifted as a part of the formation of the rift valley which separated Australia from Antarctica during the Cretaceous.
As the only vertical obstacle to weather in any direction, the range also tends to alter weather patterns around itself. The branch of the Kalgan River, which forms the southwestern border of the park, is fed in large part from precipitation falling in the western half of the range.
Climate
The annual rainfall in the plains around the park is quite low compared with the rainy Porongurups to the south, averaging only 575 millimtres (23 inches) on the southern side and as little as 400 millimetres (16 inches) in Borden on the northern side. Summer minima range from about 16 °C (60 °F) in the south to 18 °C (64 °F) in Borden. On Bluff Knoll, winter temperatures range from maxima of about 11 °C (52 °F) to minima of 3 °C (37 °F). These are the lowest temperatures in Western Australia and consequently the Stirling Range occasionally receives snowfalls—the only place in Western Australia to regularly do so, though usually it is very light.
History
The plains in the Stirling Range region were the hunting grounds for small groups of Australian Aborigines for thousands of years before European settlement. The Stirling Range played an important role in their culture, appearing in a number of Dreamtime stories.
The first recorded sighting of the Stirling Ranges by a European explorer was by Matthew Flinders on January 5, 1802. While sailing along the southern coast of Australia, just east of King George Sound, he noted
A settlement was established at King George Sound in 1826, and the following year the head of the settlement, Major Edmund Lockyer, explored the land north of the Sound. On April 29, he described the Stirling Range and recorded names for the main peaks. The following year, Robert Dale led an expedition to the Range. On January 24, 1832, he made the first recorded ascent of a peak in the Stirling Range, scaling Toolbrunup. They first saw the Stirling Ranges on November 3, and on travelling closer to them the following day, Roe gave them their name.
Early exploitation of the Stirling Ranges included cutting of sandalwood and kangaroo hunting. The Ranges were never formally taken up for grazing, probably because of the many poison bushes in the area. However, squatters ran sheep to the south of the Range in the 1850s, and in the 1860s a selection was taken up at the base of Mount Trio.
The area that is now the Stirling Range National Park was temporarily reserved in April 1908, and formally gazetted as Western Australia's third national park in June 1913.
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