Experiencing The Bungle Bungles

As I sit here overlooking the most bluest of Oceans that I've ever seen with white satin beaches in Broome WA, the red dust and towering rocky domes of the Bungle Bungles are long gone, yet the experience is imprinted upon my mind forever.

Our journey to this enchanted land started in Kununurra by booking a scenic flight over the region. From take off to landing this two hour flight encompassed the best of the Kimberley's. I was astounded at the Ord River irrigation area, an agricultural development, still in its first stage yet yielding tea tree and Sandalwood in bulk for international markets. Other crops including thousands of Mangoes tree's were lush and green against the red dirt and blue sky, its amazing what can be grown in the dessert with a little water.

Following lake Kununurra and crossing the Carr Boyd Ranges Lake Argyle came into view, this massive body of water is officially an inland sea, from here we could see the Argyle Downs Homestead an enormous cattle station and the Ord River dam wall site of the Hydro power station. Continuing south into cattle country flying over Lissadell and Texas Downs stations, two very large and remote cattle stations. These stations are currently suffering from Australia's live meat Industry ban, on trade to Indonesia,because of ill treatment and slaughter practices.

A small peninsular came into view on the port side of our plane on Lake Argyle, which we were advised was the only place that Zebra Rock was mined in Australian. A unique stone with Zebra like stripes, how rare is that? The mines now flooded due to the wettest wet season in recorded history.http://www.earthmuseum.see.uwa.edu.au/__data/page/48912/Zebra_Rock2.pdf

Flying low over the spectacular Osmond Ranges we saw first hand what the movement of tectonic plates does to the land; causing a fault line, not unlike waves crashing upon the shore, just awesome to see!

Purnululu National Park (the Bungle Bungles) majestically rose out of the horizon like massive bee hives. The orange and black stripes appeared even, as if painted on, but are in fact a bacteria, put very simply. Layers of Sandstone with a higher clay content , supports an organism called Cyan bacteria. These organisms only inhabit the top few millimeters of Sandstone, but this is enough to provide a coating which protects it from erosion. Sandstone which is clay-poor is more porous , drying quickly, so it does not create ideal conditions for the Cyan Bacteria to grow, and the orange colour is due to the oxidation of Iron in the Sandstone.  20 million years of erosion has lead to these  spectacular sandstone formations  and the world's best!  So there you go, we've seen The "Bungle Bungles"
yahoo!

We spent a good 20 minutes orbiting and diving low over various gorges, including the renown Piccaninny Gorge, which is one of the most remote to access.

But the air turbulence over the Bungles was a little rough and several passengers had their head in their souvenir  paper bag, you know the one  they give you on boarding the plane; so the pilot took us up higher on the return journey towards the Argyle Diamond mine.

The mine was a massive pit in the earth, and the Diamond reef is excavated  by open cut and underground mining.  Apparently there is another untouched reef worth $30 billion or so beneath the company airstrip, which by the way is the only entrance for visitors on the $610 pp tour of the mine, a cost unfortunately which was too steep for our budget.

With the turbulence settled one could relax back and thoroughly enjoy the colors' of the Kimberley's and the Ragged Ranges with a second look at the Ord River development, before landing.

The two hour complete Kimberley experience, will live with us forever, a "must do" if you get the opportunity to.

We camped  at the Hidden Valley Caravan Park for a couple of days while we explored the area, but low and behold there really was a
"Hidden Valley" right behind us in the caravan Park.  

The Sandstone structures with in this Park being very similar in colour to the Bungle Bungles, and which resembled ancient ruins'. With several different pathways through out  the Park we were spoilt for choice and over the two days we explored them all. It was a rather small Park with town housing built around it, one pathway lead us to the Dead centre of town; the cemetery, it was home to one of the biggest and ugliest Boab  tree's you ever did see. Boab's are native  to this region of WA and believe me no two are the same.

Monday we hit the road south towards a free camp area called Spring Creek, on the Highway opposite the road to Purnululu National Park, that's right we were up for the ground experience as well. The Bungle enchantment had got to us and we wanted to see first hand the chasm's and gorges, and walk the walk to Cathedral Gorge, made famous by the Qantas Choir singing their anthem " I still call Australia home" . What an achievement that was to accomplish that footage, with all those children and equipment and obstacles.

 

Getting back to the story, of Spring Creek it was very over crowded the afternoon we arrived and we were forced to park right in the middle of the lower car parking area in a dust bowl.

Thankfully early the next morning a place became available overlooking the Creek on a higher level, just right for us to swing into, by the time most people were rising we had a new camp setup. Allan and Liz from Melbourne were our neighbors' and they were happy to watch the Van while we ventured off into the Bungles, Ivan and Chris from Bundaberg had already offered to mind Mylee so we were set to go adventuring.

We fortunately have a reasonable level of skill at 4Wheel Driving but the road in and out was very rough and more than challenging. Its 106 kilometers of corrugated hell with 49 river crossings, only 11 being dry and sandy, then there's another 100 or so kilometers to travel with in the Park, but that dirt road  is reasonable.  I do pity those city slickers though, who venture in on their annual holidays, several people were rescued the day we went, a drive which is defiantly not for the faint hearted.

Our plan to spend just few days at Spring Creek turned into 10 days, and with such great neighbors' now friends, it was yet again a sad farewell as we headed off to Old Halls Creek en route to Broome, but hey that's another story.

So until next time, stay safe and remember, we look forward to your comments please write us alan@gemseek.com.au

Alan and Laurie