Around Oz the First Time - Chapter 39 - Bungle Bungles Day 2

You see stuff, you read about it, but experiencing something like the Bungle Bungles is something else. After my issues with the heat at Emma Gorge, I was a bit apprehensive about how I would go today, as we had two gorges to negotiate, Cathedral and Echidna.

Our advice was to do Cathedral first, as during the middle of the day the sun allows no respite, whereas Echidna offers sunshade most of the time, due to the tall and narrow crevasses you walk through. With this in mind we are set to leave at 6.30, but unfortunately Robyn is not ready at the appointed time, having to deal with some work issues before we are able to leave. I have also heard from the Assistant Principal of the Purnululu Aboriginal School, who would be most happy for us to visit, take some photos with the students who asked the question on Q&A and talk directly to Kirsten.

Whilst Robyn was getting ready, I took the opportunity to clean the solar panels on the roof of the van. First attempt, unsighted from standing on the top of the tyre on the Cruiser is less than successful. When I check by climbing up on the back draw bar I have been lucky if I got to 25% of the panels. I decide the only way will be to wind down the windows and stand on the sill. This allows for much better coverage of the two panels I can reach, they are quite dust laden.

We finally get going, its 53km to the visitors centre in the park, and it’s a windy bitumen road which probably means corrugations and roughness. I take it easy; the speed limit is 50kph, but the cruise control will not maintain as the safety systems keep cutting it out on corners or in loose dirt (which there is a lot of). I give the cruise control away and continue to drive, up hill and down dale so to speak, many of the crests are not simple “drive overs” snaking to either the right of the left immediately, making the 50kph speed limit a must.

We pass 2 busses full of campers coming out of the park as we are driving in as well as a number of camper vans. It would be ridiculous to try and take one of our vans in here, they would simply bottom out on many of these short, deep, dips.

Eventually we turn up at the visitors centre. We are early, they open at 8.00am and its only 7.45am. No worries, the girls take advantage of the facilities while the men, soon joined by the women folk, read many of the pictorials scattered around. Once the centre opens, we purchase the appropriate park pass – $15 – and again are advised to do Cathedral Gorge and the Domes first by driving to the T in the road and going right. Its 27 kilometres to Picaninny, the parking area for the gorge walk.

We were told the day before an orchestra actually played in the gorge which will be interesting to see why. We head off pass the Domes Walk entrance (we will do that on the way back, heat stroke permitting), and off to the Cathedral Gorge, passing much mother nature architecture both in the form of rock formations, but flora and fauna (as in anthills) induced.

The track is sandy and tough underfoot as we traverse track and riverbed. This is taking it out of me and its only getting hotter. We stop for a drink in the shade before pushing on and on. Finally, we make the amazing gorge this walk brings you to. It is a chasm of rock, gouged out by the wind and the water. It has a pool of stagnant water at the back end which is fed in the rain by several fissures in the rocks. I take a few minutes super slow motion shooting a child skipping pebbles on the water, then Forbsy throwing a branch into the middle of the pond, and finally me tossing rocks into it. Practice makes perfect.

Silver Leader has made a discovery. Due to “the shape of the gallery and the conducting power of the rocks” (a line from Rick Wakeman’s – Journey to the Centre of the Earth), you can hear footprints in the gravel as people walk over it. We suspect this is where the orchestra was listened to from. Such a place with such acoustics, I must try them out so I belt out the first 2 lines from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma, “Oh what a beautiful morning, Oh what a beautiful day”. Robyn picks up her pone and videos me doing it again. The call from Silver Leader is something down the lines of who strangled the cat.

The frivolities over with, we start back, the sun is much higher and much hotter now and I am feeling every step through the sand. I would have been happy not to attempt the Domes walk but is only 100 metres longer than the direct path to the carpark according to the sign – what a load of crap, what it really meant was it was 400 metres to the walk! By the time we have finished the walk, I am very hot. The water I took for the journey is all but done and now warmed by the sun and the rubbing against my back.

I get my breath back, so I thought, and we head off on the 27 kilometres back to the turnoff and then 19 kilometres to the Echidna carpark. Along the way I struggle to keep going and fear that after lunch, I may need to stay int eh car and sleep rather than walk to the Chasm.

We pull into the carpark and I stop at the first available picnic table, we pull out our lunch stuff, along with some very cold drinks and we invade the privacy of a couple already there. They are there after having dome the walk we are preparing to undertake. They talk of it in glowing terms and my luncheon consumption is making me feel much better so I decide to join the others on this trek, which it has to be said is much shorter than the other one and in shade most of the time so we are told.

The trek is again along a creek bed, but this time there is no sand only gibbers and whereas there was no alternative at Cathedral there is also a track circumventing the riverbed in a lot of places, making walking very much easier. As promised the shade of the Chasm make life a whole lot easier as does the breeze which is howling down the track. We walk along a track which takes us into a very much darkened area, the Chasm proper. Now the only light is emanating from the tops of the extremely high walls, pictures here range in colours from almost blacks to bright oranges and then the azure of the sky up one side and back again to the grey stony floor

Finally, we get to what appears to be the end of the line, a large amphitheatre with seating and an information station. The seating is probably more for those wishing to take photos of the tops of the Chasm rather than crooking one’s neck to get the best shots. We had been told not to be thinking the end is where you might think it is, and wait a minute, where is Robyn, she was leading this little expedition wasn’t she. All of a sudden, Robyn appears form a fissure in the wall and beckons us to head further into the wall. Another chasm heads off and again appears to finish, but on further investigation we reveal even further we can traverse. We come against boulders appearing to block our way, simply looking right at the end of the shows a track around, and so it goes. 2 Ladders and an actual clamber up some rocks and we are in another amphitheatre, this one even more spectacular than the first.

Here, Silver Leader and Rosalie engage in some rock-climbing t take a special shot, demanded by their grand children to mimic a shot they had done when they were here not that long ago. Now Robyn had disappeared originally for only a short time, surely, she has not seen this part of the Chasm. Looking down the path we had come, I find Robyn walking to join us.

We too arrange a shot, climbing the rocks, we marvel at the sights and head back down the track. This place had offered way more than first it seemed and listening to those who had already been on the trek was a godsend. So much so we told everyone we met on the return journey.

On the way back I noticed the sun was beginning to get to the point you could take a sunrise photo in the middle of the day. Ensuring I am in the right spot, shots like this create a halo effect around the rock face you are trying to shoot, further by playing with the light settings you can bring out the colours of the rocks as well as have the halo.

Because the walk is mostly in the shade, I am much less fatigued. The walk back to the car, expect for the last little bit in the car park to the Cruiser takes little out of me, and with that Robyn suggests its time for ice creams, and with that we pile in and head off. I suggest to Rosalie, now that ice creams have been called it will be very hard to stop me between here and the visitors centre. Having said that I do observe the 50kph speed limit with respect.

At the visitors centre, unfortunately they are out of ice creams, so we end up with Zooper Doopers. Its getting close to school finishing time and I want to make contact with Zoe, the acting headmistress at Purnululu Aboriginal School, and confirm the arrangements for tomorrow. I crank up the Cruiser a bit on the road back, enjoying the “rallying” I am able to do, to a point, as the road is quite rough and I am unfamiliar with it, other than the trip in.

My efforts make Rosalie carsick, and as soon as we have reception, we stop to make the call and everyone gets out to have a walk. Its 53 kilometres from the visitors centre to the main road and we have covered in excess of 45 of them in no time at all. I speak to Zoe and confirm all the details, including the hook up with Kirsten and everyone climbs back in, Rosalie in the front to assist her with here issues, and I drive at a much more sedate pace back to the caravan park.

The lollypop man which was working the traffic flow yesterday is on again today, and we wave at him as we drive past. From the wave we get back I think we remembers us as well, he should seeing he almost guided us off the road yesterday.

Back at the van, we want to charge the phones and the computers, but the battery does not seem to have been charged. I did clean the panels this morning to make them more efficient but does not seem to have worked. I do no know what I am doing wrong here ore investigation will be required. Tomorrow night we will be on power, so it won’t be an issue. I just trust I will be OK with the C-Pap machine tonight; it has been giving me issues with the machine connection and it cutting off. Only time will tell.

Again an early night as we need to be at the school at 8.30am for assembly.