The climb of Mt Bruce, the second-highest mountain in Western Australia, standing at 1235m, is the only hike in Karijini National Park that takes you onto a mountaintop and rewards the effort with panoramic views over the landscape. All other walks with elevation gain descend into one of the gorges that crisscross this purplish-red scenery.

Parks and Wildlife Service’s generous estimate for the 9-kilometre Class 5 trail with almost 600m elevation gain is six hours and probably factors in 40+ degree temperatures in summer. I don’t however recommend this hike in the summer heat as there is no shade. In winter, experienced hikers should easily manage the return trip in 3-4 hours.

The trail is well-marked and not technical, but rocky underfoot. A few sections require some rock scrambling and one steep drop is secured by a metal chain. It is a demanding hike for most, but the views are grand throughout and the track can easily be shortened. The Marandoo View (Class 2) and Honey Hakea tracks (Class 3) are both short sections of the Mount Bruce Summit walk and will take 30 minutes and 3 hours respectively.

A few minutes into the walk, we came to the first lookout point with views over the Marandoo Mine that has produced iron ore since 1994. When iron deposits were suspected in this area in the early 1990s, parts of the national park were simply converted into a mine.

We were surprised by the indifference and lack of support shown towards this protected area, but then mining is Australia’s single largest economic sector by share of total national GDP and the most profitable. Furthermore, Australia’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions from coal power are still the highest worldwide and almost double those of China. 

We were equally surprised to learn of the lack of respect for the traditional owners of this country.

The mine stayed in view as we continued on the trail and a long train rumbled past in front. Three white locomotives and roughly forty freight cars loaded with iron ore laboriously wound their way across the vast red plains towards the sea. Dwarfed to the size of a model railway by the distance, the train appeared to move in slow motion, but the loud rambling noise travelled easily across the open expanse.

Of the myriad ways mines negatively impact the environment, the most obvious is probably the disfigurement of the natural landscape. In the vast emptiness of the Australian outback, however, the mine from afar didn’t look all that different to the rest of the landscape. Its stepped, angled sides were perhaps an odd sight, but otherwise, we mostly saw barren, red earth almost identical to the rest of the scenery.

When the mine disappeared from sight, the trail became more rugged. We paid more attention to where we put our feet and soon counted dozens of geckos sunbathing on the warm rock.

Less than two hours into the walk, we gained the summit, and the path gave way to a spectacular panorama of a sunburnt country speckled with tussock grass, wildflowers and stunted shrubs spreading towards the blazing horizon.