Friday 9 September 2011

Bungle bungles World heritage park

Drove out of Kunununarra on the road back to Broome . The turn off is about 300kms from K and 700 from Broome .
Roads still got a few caravans / campers etc on them but certainly is getting quieter as the weather warms up . The past few days in Kunununarra were 36degrees during the day.
Good trip to the turn off to the Bungle bungles (Purnululu in Aboriginal) campsite and just for once it was only 750 meters off the road rather then the usual 50 Kms !
Set up the trailer and had a quiet night with only light beers .
Got up early to get to the park which is 55kms from the campground on a very rough unsealed road with quite a few creek crossings .
It takes 2-3 hours to travel the 55 kms to the rangers station .
The park gets 20 thousand visitors a year and 75% of them fly in to the small landing strip there .
Spent time first walking to the Piccaniny look out through the domes which were amazing , the photos you see do not do justice to the scale of the area.
The sandstone domes colour is amazing and with millions of years erosion it feels you are stepping back in time .
Then visited the Cathedral gorge which is mostly dry this time of year , great acoustics and
quite humbling to see .
Other great places we visited were the Echidna Chasm which is basically a dry river bed you can walk up in the dry season but gets very tight and squeazy in places with very high sandstone walls you can just see the sky through .could be a bit claustrophobic .
Also went to Osmand lookout which takes in the valley and feeder rivers for the Ord river
We reckon the park is stunning and a must see and would visit again anyway but maybe fly in next time !, speaking to people who have flown over the area they say it's amazing to see from the air .
Returned back to the campsite after seeing as much as we could ( some parts are now not accessible due to cultural reasons ) which is on a station called Mabel Downs and is a 1.7
million acre cattle station , had a very hearty ranch dinner for $20.00 pp of fresh pumpkin soup and beef casserole with a few other travelers .slept like a babe .

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