Natural wonders of Australia and Oceania

Mountains, deserts, waterfalls, reefs, rivers, caves and volcanoes, and how nature made them.

5 to explore

Watch Natural wonder Aoraki / Mount Cook Aoraki / Mount Cook is New Zealand's highest mountain, in the Southern Alps of the South Island. Its name joins its Māori name, Aoraki, with its English name, Mount Cook. The mountain is being pushed up where two of Earth's plates meet, and glaciers carve the valleys around it. In 2013 surveyors measured it at 3,724 meters.
Watch Natural wonder Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef stretches about 2,300 kilometers along the coast of Queensland, Australia. It is made of about 2,500 separate reefs and more than 900 islands, built by tiny coral animals, and it is home to more than 1,500 kinds of fish.
Watch Natural wonder K'gari K'gari, off the coast of Queensland in Australia, is the largest sand island in the world. Sand dunes rise up to about 250 meters, rainforest grows right on the sand, and about half of the world's perched dune lakes sparkle among the dunes. Once called Fraser Island, it was officially renamed K'gari, the Butchulla people's name for it, in 2023.
Watch Natural wonder Kakadu National Park Kakadu, in Australia's Northern Territory, is the country's largest national park. It stretches from a high sandstone cliff called the escarpment down to floodplains, mangroves and the sea. Aboriginal people have lived here for tens of thousands of years, and their rock paintings, some up to 20,000 years old, record their way of life.
Watch Natural wonder Uluru Uluru is a huge sandstone rock in the desert of central Australia, rising 348 meters above the plain, with a base 9.4 kilometers around. The Anangu are its Traditional Owners, and the national park around it is run by Anangu and Parks Australia together.