5 secret places to greet the sun

Glowing tangerine and gold as the sun begins to rise, Pildappa Rock takes me completely by surprise. Fringed by weathered walls that flare like cresting waves frozen in time, it calls me to climb, luring me up a gently rising spur of prickly granite.

Just four storeys up I reach Pildappa’s lichen-covered summit, undulating and pitted with tiny waterholes called gnammas that cradle sweet, clear rainwater and nurture verdant grasses with delicate white blooms. Clinging precariously to its slopes, eroded boulders shed outer layers of granite like onion skins, and far below my feet a vast patchwork of farming plots stretches endlessly south.

There’s nothing busy about this uplifting sunrise scene. Once buried seven kilometres underground, Pildappa Rock has taken its time to rise from the earth and remains an unhurried place where it feels just right to rest. There are no walking trails or must-do activities, preserving the serenity atop this lonely island of mottled pink granite for solitude-seekers like me, watching the sun begin to shine.

If you’ve never found your way to Pildappa Rock, it might be because this little viewpoint is located far off the beaten track at the top