Painted Hills, South Australia

Painted Hills - 2333

In the remote outback of South Australia lies one of the continent’s most breathtaking secrets—the Painted Hills. Spanning 20 kilometres by 10 kilometres, this otherworldly landscape appears more like an artist’s canvas than the product of deep time and geological force.

Millions of years ago, this land was flat—a quiet, ancient seabed layered with sediment. But the Earth is never still. Tectonic movements slowly lifted the land skyward, warping the once-level terrain into a rugged plateau. Over time, rivers began to carve their way through the uplifted rock, etching deep channels and isolating hills and ridgelines into sculptural forms.

What remains today is a natural gallery of colour and shape—bold tabletop formations washed in surreal tones of red, gold, orange and white. These hues are the result of mineral alchemy: rainwater, seeping through the porous ground, dissolved iron and manganese within the soil. As these minerals oxidised, they bloomed into a palette worthy of any great painter.

But unlike a canvas, this work of art is always changing. Wind, sun and the rare desert rains continue to sculpt and shade the landscape, whispering time’s passage across its silent slopes.

Remote and untouched, the Painted Hills are accessible only by air. And perhaps that’s fitting—for such beauty should be discovered slowly, from above, like a dream revealing itself on the edge of the horizon.