Friday 19 July 2013

1 July -2 July 2013 – Bungle Bungle Range (Purnululu National Park)



Josh was up early this morning and took off with the car to find a tyre shop.  Fortunately the Tyre Power that he pulled up in, had the Cooper’s that we were after.  He bought 2 new tyres costing over $800 – money that could have gone into fuel (bugger).  Whilst there he got chatting (as he does) to the guy in the workshop that used to be a mechanic at Argyle Motors, and together they also adjusted the hand-break which had been bothering him for a while.  Fortunately, all this was done and Josh was back at the van by 9amish.  In the meantime, I’d tidied and gathered the latest school work for returning at Kununurra Post Office before heading off.  We parted ways with the Harris family this morning, who were staying in Kununurra to do a flight over the Bungle Bungles and then the sunset cruise on Lake Argyle, whilst we were heading south by car and walking into the Bungle Bungles.  We drove for about 3 hours (somewhere along here we passed by the Argyle Diamond Mine - there are no signs to point out the entrance) before going about 500 metres past the Purnululu entrance and pulling up at a free camp called Spring Creek.  It was pretty crowded but we managed to squeeze our van in on the lower section where it was much shadier than the top area.  We set up camp, checked out a few cows which had come into the camp area, chatted to a few other campers including a family that we’d met at Lake Argyle with a daughter Maddi (and she was pleased to see the girls again) and then settled in for dinner and a game of Trivial Pursuit – yes, Josh won again!

The following morning we had decided to get up and leave pretty early as we knew that it was a fairly long dirt road into the Bungle Bungles.  However, even though we woke around 6am, we stayed in bed for nearly another 2 hours…. it was freezing, well under 20 degrees!!    When we finally surfaced, had our big breakfast and prepared lunches, we were ready to go around 8.30am.  The drive from the highway into the Visitor Centre was about 53kms, full of rocks, plenty of corrugations and a whole lot of twists and bends.  About half hour into our trip we came to a screaming halt when Sami announced that she wasn’t feeling well.  I swapped seats with her and we pushed on – she made it with a clean bill of health – thankfully!  We checked ourselves into the national park, paying the relevant small fees, and, with Sami in the front seat, we followed our map about 20kms further to the far northern point, Echidna Chasm.  We followed a rocky river bed for about 500 metres before coming to a small cave in the side of one of the large rocky mountains.  We continued on past many small palms and found our way to a large crack in the side of a huge mountain.  The walls of this crack showed the mountain formation made of thousands of varied sized rocks which had been compound with sand and sediment around 360 million years ago.  It is incredible and stunning all at once.  The crack in the mountain gets narrower and narrower the farther in you walk.  About half way into the chasm, there was a larger sitting area where quite a bit of light was let in, quite a few tourists had stopped and seated themselves here to simply admire the beauty.  We walked further in and climbed a few ladders along the way, before reaching the end of he chasm and turning back to view it all again from a different angle.  Upon reaching our starting point, we veered off to the right to head up a hill to Osmand Lookout.  It was all very pretty.  Back in the car, we drove towards the Visitors Centre and pulled into another lookout off to the right.  The call was made “last one to the top was a rotten egg” so we all took off but Sami left her car door open…  Josh (being out the same side of the car) had to hang back and close her door while the rest of us took off (might I add that I was carrying the camera bag and camera.  About one third of the way up Sami gave up and plonked herself down on the dirt track – she’d had enough.  Zoe was way ahead and I got past Sami and slowed down yelling words of encouragement for her to get back up and keep racing, Dad was still behind her.  She wasn’t interested – Zoe was about two thirds of the way up the hill and Josh had already sprinted past me and was on the heels of Zoe… and finally overtook her.  Good work Josh – winner, winner, chicken dinner!  The downfall was that he was coughing up dust for the next couple of hours to compensate.  Sami eventually made it to the top of the hill before we took some mandatory photos and descended again.  Next we drove to the southern part of the Bungle Bungle park.  It was about 27kms past the Visitor Centre in another direction.  We drove to the carpark that takes you to the walks for the Domes and the Cathedral.  Before doing these walks we grabbed our lunch and sat at the shaded lunch areas.  Our first walk of this area was through the Domes, with the sun glistening down on the black and orange stripes of each of these spectacular rocks.  About half way around the loop, we ventured off on the other park that takes you to the Cathedral.  It is about a 1km walk – fairly easy – over lots of big flat rocks and along other pathways that sit amongst lots of high grass, up a few ladders and finally to a large sandy beach area with a big shallow lagoon in the centre.  The Cathedral is a massive rock which the bottom section eroded leaving an overhang over the shallow water.  There was a lovely reflection of the rocks coming off the water and fortunately we were the only ones here at this time enjoying the serenity.  Sami, as she does, was happy to sit in the sand and get dirty whilst ignoring the rest of us, Zoe was happy playing photographer on her iPod and Josh and I were wandering around stunned at the beauty of this place.  We walked back out towards the carpark stopping to toss around the idea of doing one more walk but as it was getting later in the day, we opted out - probably for the best.  It was around 4.30pm by the time we got back to the car and we still had 27km of dirt track back to the Visitors Centre, then a further 53kms of dirt bendy road back to the caravan.  Sami took up the front seat again while Zoe and I watched a movie in the back.  Before too long it was dark and Josh was carefully watching for the kangaroos.  We’d passed the Visitor Centre and about 40kms beyond, when again Sami announced that she wasn’t feeling well.  Josh pulled over in the dark and out she hopped.  I got out and walked around to check on her (getting bindies in my feet along the way) and after a few deep breaths, I talked her into getting back into the car – we didn’t have far to go.  She was our helper to open and shut the “Mabel Downs” gate when we reached the end of the road and fortunately again made it to the end without letting anything out.  It was freezing by the time we got back to the van, and being at a free-camp had no power to use the reverse air-conditioning to warm up our home.  Maddi had come to see if the kids wanted to play so we had a quick dinner and Josh and Sami went to their camp to sit by the fire and Sami played a few games of Trouble before returning.  By this stage, Zoe and I had showered and snuggled in my bed with our jumpers on to keep warm.  Josh and Sami had their showers and gotten into bed with us.  Luckily the expanda bed held the weight of all four of us for a while – and eventually the kids found their own beds for the night – ours was snuggly warm with two doonas on it.



















































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