Qualla: Murphy's Haystacks https://qualla.com/murphy-s-haystacks en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:26 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/p/s/murphy-s-haystacks-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Murphy's Haystacks https://qualla.com/murphy-s-haystacks Murphy's Haystacks: Introduction https://qualla.com/murphy-s-haystacks/ Photo credit Diceman~commonswiki, Public domain. A man rode past in a horse-drawn coach, glanced across the paddocks, and was impressed. Look at all that hay, he supposedly said - what a farmer, to grow so much. The pale, rounded shapes he saw standing in the distance were not haystacks at all. They were granite: a scatter of smooth pink boulders and pillars rising straight out of a wheat field, some of them taller than a house. The farm belonged to a man named Murphy, and the name the traveller's mistake gave them has stuck ever since. These are Murphy's Haystacks, on the Eyre Peninsula between Streaky Bay and Port Kenny, and they are one of the oldest things you will ever stand next to.

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Image: Diceman~commonswiki | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/p/s/murphy-s-haystacks-wp/qfps-murphys-haystacks-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Murphy's Haystacks: Older Than Almost Everything https://qualla.com/murphy-s-haystacks/ Photo credit Vickiitpot, CC BY-SA 4.0. The rock here is part of the Hiltaba Granite, and its age is genuinely difficult to hold in the mind: more than 1,500 million years. That is older than fish, older than land plants, older than nearly every living thing whose lineage walks or swims today. When this granite first c...

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Image: Vickiitpot | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/p/s/murphy-s-haystacks-wp/qfps-murphys-haystacks-older-than-almost-everything.mp3 0:06 2 full Murphy's Haystacks: Carved by Water and Wind https://qualla.com/murphy-s-haystacks/ Photo credit Chris Fithall, CC BY 2.0. Geologists call formations like these inselbergs - 'island mountains' that stand isolated above a worn-down plain - and the individual boulders are textbook tors. The pink colour comes from the minerals in the stone: mostly quartz and a feldspar called orthoclase, coarsely crysta...

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Image: Chris Fithall | CC BY 2.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/p/s/murphy-s-haystacks-wp/qfps-murphys-haystacks-carved-by-water-and-wind.mp3 0:06 3 full Murphy's Haystacks: A Working Farm and a Heritage Site https://qualla.com/murphy-s-haystacks/ Photo credit XtraWild, CC BY-SA 4.0. Unusually for a natural wonder, Murphy's Haystacks sits on private farmland near the locality of Mortana, and the family who own the land have long welcomed visitors for a small fee dropped in an honesty box. That arrangement gives the place an intimacy that a fenced-off national...

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Image: XtraWild | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/p/s/murphy-s-haystacks-wp/qfps-murphys-haystacks-a-working-farm-and-a-heritage-site.mp3 0:06 4 full