This ancient land with its untamed landscape is one of the harshest, yet most beautiful, in the world, writes Craig Tansley.
THE KIMBERLEY,
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
The Kimberley is where the Dreamtime began. It's where one of the planet's oldest peoples - Indigenous Australians - can be traced back more than 40,000 years. 
This extraordinarily ancient culture has coloured the Kimberley with a sense of isolated romanticism that no other place can muster.
For Australians seeking a journey into ancient lands in the hope of gaining more of an understanding of this country's unique Indigenous heritage, there is no better destination.
The Kimberley is an area three times the size of England (423,000 square kilometres) but with fewer than 40,000 inhabitants (England has 57 million people).
There are fewer people per square kilometre living here than in almost any other place on the planet. There's nowhere that offers more of an escape from modern life.
The Kimberley's landscape is among the most diverse on Earth. It's much more than a desert, though many of us think of it that way. There are more prehistoric sheer-sided mountain ranges here than endless red sand plains. There are also plunging gorges, waterfalls and rivers that flow fast with the tide. There are even beaches - plenty of them - spread across the wildest and most beautiful stretch of coastline in Australia, accessible often only by boat.
The landscape is so steep that the Kimberley is impossible to traverse from back-to-front and parts have still not been seen by anyone. It's one of the remotest, wildest regions left on Earth.
But for all its harshness - it is a place of parched, red earth and dangerous rivers where salt-water crocodiles lie in wait for those naive enough to tread - the Kimberley exudes a gentleness you only glimpse at sunrise, at sunset and under all those stars.
If you like feeling lost on holiday, there's nowhere on Earth you'll feel quite as helpless.
See australiasnorthwest.com; westernaustralia.com.