Nancy Peak, Porongurup NP (Top trail)

Porongurup | Borongur

Known as Borongur to Noongar people, the Porongurup Range is one of the most culturally significant landscapes in the Lower Great Southern. Rising from the surrounding plains east of Kinjarling (Albany), these ancient granite peaks hold deep spiritual meaning for the Menang people and neighbouring Noongar groups, including the Goreng, Wirlomun and Pibbulmun peoples.

The range is incredibly ancient, with the granite formations weathered over hundreds of millions of years. Unlike many other parts of the world shaped by recent ice ages and glacial movement, this landscape has remained largely undisturbed for over 250 million years. This stability allowed an extraordinary diversity of plant life to evolve, making the Porongurups a refuge for hundreds of native plant species, wildlife and insects found within a relatively small area.

For Noongar people, however, Borongur is far more than a place of ecological importance. It is a deeply sacred cultural landscape connected to identity, spirituality, learning and transition into adulthood.

Traditionally, young Menang people would journey into the high country of the Porongurups during an important stage of life to seek their second totem. A first totem was inherited through the maternal line, connecting an individual to family, ancestry and Country. The second totem was discovered through personal spiritual experience within the range itself.

Young people would spend time alone in the mountains, quietly waiting and observing Country. The first significant animal, tree or natural feature revealed to them during this experience would become their second totem. This process marked a powerful transition from childhood into adulthood and strengthened a lifelong spiritual connection to the natural world.

Totems carry deep meaning within Noongar culture. They are not simply symbols, but living connections that guide responsibility, identity, behaviour and care for Country. A person’s totem creates an enduring relationship with that species or place, reinforcing respect, protection and cultural obligation.

Today, Borongur remains a place of immense cultural importance, where ancient stories, spiritual connections and the presence of ancestors continue to be felt across the landscape.

The Porongurup Range is one of the oldest mountain landscapes in Western Australia. Its towering granite domes are the result of geological processes that began more than 1.2 billion years ago.

Around that time, two enormous land masses were colliding: the Mawson Plate, which later became part of Antarctica, and the ancient Yilgarn Craton, an old block of continental crust that still underlies much of southern Western Australia. As these continental plates pushed together, heat and pressure deep within the Earth helped form a vast body of molten granite. This granite cooled slowly underground, creating the foundations of the Porongurup Range.

The range forms part of a much larger geological belt created during this period of continental collision. Similar ancient rocks extend from east of Manjimup, along the south coast through Albany and Esperance, and north-east toward the border of Western Australia and South Australia.

Geologists describe the Porongurup Range as a batholith: a massive body of granite formed deep underground and later exposed by erosion. Over millions of years, weathering and erosion gradually stripped away softer surrounding rocks, leaving behind the hardest granite peaks and creating the striking domes, boulders and rock formations seen along the walking trails today.

This process of erosion continues today. As granite slowly breaks down, it creates slightly richer soils around the base of the range. Combined with higher rainfall, these soils support tall karri forest, jarrah and marri woodland, and a remarkable diversity of plant and fungi species unusual for this part of Western Australia.