30 June -1 July Bungle Bungles

Didn’t get away til late in the morning as the Webbs and Serisiers still had a bit to do in Kununarra. We filled the morning with an outing to a local café for breakfast by the Ord River. The Ord River feeds Lake Argyle which is a man made lake bigger than Sydney Harbour. After breakfast we went to the Zebra Rock Gallery where the kids added to their ever growing rock collection (the kids at Manly West are going to see a lot of rocks at News) and fed the catfish that linger or should I say swarm in the Ord River. Have a look at all those hungry mouths! (Amanda doesn’t it remind you of something?)
We arrived at the Bungle Bungles in the late afternoon. 200km of highway followed by 50 kms of rough road, winding hills, dust and river crossings. Set up camp while the kids (all 10 of them) got the fire going. We’ve certainly got the whole setup of camp down pat so we were sitting down having a drink before the sun set.
The Bungle Bungles are a natural wonder discovered by “white” people only in the mid 1980s and now registered as a World Heritage site. The Bungles have formed over 20 million years and have created beehive dome shaped mountain ranges. There are walks into a few areas but the park is best seen from the air. So we have planned to take a helicopter flight (sans children) tomorrow.
Our day kicked off with a drive and a walk to Cathedral Gorge. We wanted to get an early start because the days here are mid 30s and the kids can only handle so much walking. The walk to Cathedral Gorge winded through a valley of beehive domes. The “beehive” look is caused by the orange and black layering of the sandstone that forms in orange and black layers. The black layer is due to the presence of cynobacteria in the sandstone. We rested by the waterhole at the gorge while the children created havoc (we thought they were well behaved) in the eyes of a couple of older folk.
Tim, Sam Kate and I booked a helicopter flight while the Webbs kept an eye on the kids. The 18 minute flight was spectacular and gave a wonderful perspective on the beauty of the area.
After our flight we squeezed in a visit to the rangers centre to get a couple of postcards off to Granny and Grandma before heading to Echidna Chasm.
Echidna Chasm was yet another beautiful walk. It was 2 km (ish) return walk through a shady chasm where the walls were so close you could almost touch both walls at the same time. The walls probably rose 80 metres and were made up of conglomerate rock. The entrance to the valley had tall palm trees the contrasted against the glow of the orange chasm walls. By this stage I think the kids had well and truly had their walking quota for the dayBack to the campsite for what may be our last campfire as we are heading of WA for the NT over the next day or so. Celebrated with a crumble cooked in the campoven.