Purnululu - the Bungle Bungles

Hello dear blogsters, well after 4 days out in the remote Purnululu National Park - I have so much to share with you!

We camped overnight at the caravan park at Warmun (otherwise known as Turkey Creek) - no powered sites available so we camped in the unpowered section by the edge of the road. Not a bad spot but the showers and toilets were interesting to say the least! But the sunset on the ranges was magnificent!

Did I mention before how hard it is to wake Danni up in the morning - she is just a zombie before 7 am. We will obviously have to work on her! And as for her hair...it's a bird's nest at the best of times - check out the feather in her hair!

Anyway, we woke up and packed ready for our adventure to Purnululu. We had to leave Mum and Dad's van and Ginger (the trailer) behind - as this was definitely a 4wd road only. So it took a bit of organising to get us down to Uncle John's car and Tvan and Fred - but we managed.

We drove out to the turnoff and then headed off on the dirt road through Mable Downs Station for 50 odd kilometers - as a measure of how rough this road was... it took us over 2 hours to do the 50 k. We had to drive in 4wd and soon found out why - our first obstacle was a bulldust pit - soft to drive through and coated everything with a layer of fine white powder. Danni just loved jumping around in it!

We drove on through some fairly rough stuff - lots of fun! We also had to do several creek crossings - but managed these with no problems.

We drove into the Purnululu National Park and set up in the camp ground. We went to the "generator" camp ground, as opposed to the "quiet" campground - and found there was only one other couple there - it was wonderful and peaceful!

Danni decided her hair was getting a bit long and wanted to give herself a haircut - Mum suggested that a wash would help first (much to Danni's horror) and helped her out with that. The end result was pretty good really!

After setting up, we headed out to the lookout to watch sunset - very beautiful indeed. We only wished we had a wine to celebrate with - but were a bit dry as we hadn't been able to buy any alcohol since Derby.... still, the sunset was lovely!

The next morning we headed out to do the Mini Palms walk. The last bit of road was pretty rough - all loose stones from the creek bed. We walked out through the creek bed - in awe of the magnificent rock formations - and then up the palm valley. We had to clamber over rockes and through narrow spaces (Mum handled this particularly well given her compact leg structure). It seemed like everywhere we looked was just a magnificent vista!

We took so many photos, it is impossible to put them all on the blog - but I hope you get a small idea of how magnificent it truly was. At one point, some-one had added some rocks to a fallen log to complete the picture of a crocodile - very cute!We drove back to our campsite for lunch and then drove back out to have a look at Echidna Chasm. We were a bit unprepared for the enormity of this place - and totally overwhelmed by it. The chasm reaches up over 200 metres from ground level and almost closes over above you as you walk. Danni and I had quite an extraordinary experience in several parts of the chasm - an experience which seemed connected with the very strong spirit of the land here. It is a little hard to write about it here - but suffice to say, we were quite affected by the whole thing!

We were a bit stunned to find that both Mum's and my photos reflected what we experienced..... the photo below shows what was captured when we returned into a "welcoming" part of the chasm - the sky was ordinary blue sky as the sun had moved lower into the sky - the bright light is a little hard to explain!When we came out of the chasm - Danni and I wandered up to the lookout for a look - the view was wonderful!We drove back to camp and had a lovely evening by the camp-fire. I saw a beautiful shooting star with a long blue tail. The nights out there were quite cold and we had to really rug up for bed!

The next morning, after breakfast, we headed out to have a look at the domes. The drive out was spectacular!

The rocks forming the domes were formed over 320 million years ago, and have slowly weathered into the shapes we see today. We walked through the domes and explored a lovely little grotto filled with baby frogs. Very cute indeed!

After this, we walked out to the Cathedral Gorge. This magnificent gorge was just huge beyond words! We enjoyed exploring it and singing "Amazing Grace" to hear the echoes (I would love to have heard a didge here!) To get an idea of the size of the gorge, look closely at the 2nd picture - see the size of the people walking across the floor of the gorge!

Paddy thought the gorge was pretty good - lots of little holes just the right size for him to have a rest in!

We walked out of the gorge, had lunch and then headed back to camp (with a short stop-off at the visitors centre). We all really enjoyed Uncle John's open air shower- rather a nice way to try and get at least some of the red dirt off!

We had dinner (jaffles cooked by the blokes) and then spent the evening around the camp fire with our "neighbours" - Narelle and Geoff, a young couple heading back to the east coast after spending a couple of years working at Port Headland.

We were up early this morning and away by 8 o'clock. The creek crossings were fun again and we had quite an enjoyable trip.

Things went pretty well, apart from having to stop so that Uncle John could change a tyre. He had a flat from a nail - but we reckon it could have been there for a while. At least the damage wasn't done by a rock!

We continued on - the bull-dust pit was pretty spectacular - hate to have that dust in my house!

By the time we got out onto the highway, the vehicles really looked like they had done a bit of work. We probably won't bother washing them as they will get another layer of red dirt when we go out to El Questro in a couple of days.

We drove back to Warmun, picked up the van and trailer and continued on to Kununnura. It is VERY hot and humid here - the swimming pool was a really welcome destination at the end of the day. We will stay here a couple of days and get cleaned up (lots of washing to do) and then head on out to El Questro.

And this picture is just for Kerry..... your girl is gorgeous!

Finally, great to hear from Bethanie, Ben, PJ and Margaret. Bethanie, so glad you have arrived safely in Vienna. Ben, great to hear from you - I hope you are doing ok. PJ, we all still hope you can meet us at Longreach. And Margaret, looking forward to seeing you in Darwin!

The Geeks of Geike Gorge and Dan's Croc Encounter

Hello dear blogsters. After a night road-side camping out of phone range - time to bring you up to date with the latest happenings.

When last I wrote, we were camped at Fitzroy Crossing. Well, we had a good night's sleep and got up early to have a quick breaky, pack up and be ready to go on a tour at 6.45 am. This was a big challenge for Danni (have I mentioned how HARD it is for her to get up before afternoon???)

Anyway we met our bus driver (a bloke called Chris Farmer- who grew up in Dorrigo.) and then set off for a tour of Fitzroy Crossing. The town is a largely aboriginal settlement - with some surrounding stations and the government workers who seem to be found in every little town. We were stunned at the money which has been spent here - for a little town of about 1500 people - they have a new gas generated power plant (which cost about 70 million dollars to build), a brand new hospital and the most amazing learning centre (which comprises kindergarten, primary school, secondary school and TAFE). The new learning centre is not yet complete - but was architect designed, is huge and includes a swimming pool, sports centre and playing fields. Fantastic facilities for such a small town.

We went on out to Geike Gorge (about 18 km from town). The rocky landscape was formed when this area was covered by sea - the rocky outcrops are actually the remains of coral reefs. We boarded a boat for a tour of the gorge, in the warm, morning sun.

A word to Kerry here.... you know how you said, "Oh Danni'll eat whatever you eat".... I took that to heart and have introduced Danni to the delights of the Whizz Fizz..... I'm really sorry but she loved it! I think the sugar detox thing will be REALLY good for her when she gets back.

Back to our tour of the Gorge - the scenery was stunning - limestone cliffs towering over a quietly flowing river. The rock formations were magnificent!

Paddy really enjoyed the gorge - he seems to just love going out on boat trips.... especially now that I have made him a cool new pirate bandanna to wear!

The wildlife was beautiful - we saw a jabiru, some beautiful paradise bee catchers and even our first crocodiles (the freshwater ones which aren't too dangerous). The photo below shows a crocodile - but you have to look carefully on the left hand side of the picture - just above the water line to see him.After our boat trip we went to the old Fitzroy Crossing and crossed the river. Up until about 20 years ago, this was the only crossing of the river and huge road trains used to cross here.We also stopped to have a look at the Crossing Inn - the quite famous pub. The murals on the wall have been painted by local children - and were selected in a national competition to be used as part of the Olympic Games promotions - a source of pride for this little community.We continued on after our tour - heading for Mary Pool - a roadside camp stop which Mum, Dad and Uncle John had stayed at 10 years ago. We had been told not to be late as this is a popular spot - we arrived in reasonable time - and by later at night I reckon there were over 60 vans and trailers pulled in to camp.

We set up camp - our swags looking out over the river. Then Danni and I spent some time reading Romeo and Juliet together (part of her school work).

After this Danni and I went down to the river for a walk. We saw some lovely birds sitting on a dead tree on the opposite side of the river so went closer to get a photo. We were quite entranced by the birds and crept even closer so I could get a good photo. The next thing I knew, Danni had shot backwards about 10 metres and was saying "oh my god, oh my god, Nerrida, oh my god." It took about 10 seconds for her to get the word "crocodile" out. We had been so focussed on the birds, Danni had almost stood on the tail of a crocodile sunning itself on the bank! Now don't panic Kerry - it's ok - it was a freshwater crocodile and they are not the nasty ones.It has rather a nice smile don't you think? Anyway, Danni decided that it was better to stand back and look through binoculars from a distance.Mum didn't seem too comfortable too close either!Anyway, we continued our walk (watching where we were going this time) - and enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the waterside.The blokes cooked really scrumptious jaffles for us for tea and we sat around under the stars enjoying the evening. Then, just before bed, Mum and Dad got their new camp shower out and christened it. Pretty swish really - gas heated water and all!
As is often the way with camping - we were into bed fairly early so that we will be up with the sun tomorrow morning.

Ta Ta Derby and Hello Fitzroy Crossing

Hello Blogsters, tonight I shall reclaim "On the Wallaby" after Mum's marathon effort last night ..... she went to bed all exhausted after the effort of writing the blog.

Anyway, we got up this morning and packed up - having to make an extra effort to get those darned pesky prickles out of just about everything. We filled the cars with fuel (and listened to the wallets moaning as they were emptied once again) and then went to get some groceries - not sure how much variety and how inflated the prices will be in the next few stops. I went down to the wharf to see if I could spot my keys - but missed the low tide by about half an hour and so couldn't see them.

Derby was an interesting town - boab trees all along the main street and shops that don't look like shops... more like corrugated iron sheds. The price of housing here is a bit surprising - a minimum of $450 000 for a simple little fibro house on a small block. Not sure who would want to live there, let alone pay that money!

We stopped off to take photos of a particularly large boab tree - now I know I have a lot of photos of these - but they are such bizarre looking trees!

And here is the obligatory photo which includes Fred in front of something interesting.We stopped off at a road-side stop for lunch - Mum had trouble keeping her bum on the seat and nearly fell off (thank goodness Dad and Uncle John grabbed various parts of her anatomy before she fell). Danni found this hysterical for some reason and giggled non-stop for the next 10 minutes or so.

We drove on into Fitzroy Crossing. This place has had quite a bad name in the past - big social and alcohol related problems in the aboriginal community. We are staying at a beautiful lodge resort and caravan park on the north side of the river and are told it is perfectly safe - it certainly seems that way.

Tomorrow we are going on a tour of Fitzroy Crossing township (where we will no doubt find out about how things are changing here - hopefully things are improving) and then out on a boat up Geike Gorge. We will roadside camp at Mary Pool tomorrow night.

Hi to everyone at home and following the blog in Victoria.