MEMORIES to KEEP

Keep River National Park is small by territory standards — only 574 square kilometres, less than 3 per cent of the size of Kakadu — but it stands tall among the best in the Top End for its spectacular landscape, Indigenous rock art, and abundance of unique wildlife.

This is an ancient land, with its long and complex geological history reflected in a broad spectrum of diverse landforms and rock types. Most of the park is covered by undulating alluvial plains interspersed with dissected plateaus and exfoliated domes rising over 300m above the surrounding savannah. The park’s strikingly beautiful sandstone structures are composed of fine-grained sediments and ‘pudding stone’ conglomerate deposited in layers about 360 million years ago on the bed of a sea that once covered much of the East Kimberley region. Tectonic forces later lifted and tilted the richly-coloured rock and exposed it to weathering which sculpted ‘beehive’ formations with crevices, caves, and overhangs.

These are the tribal lands of