Talk about rough! 70km of twisty dirt road through Mable Downs and Purnululu, across creeks and rivers, up steep ridges….. I was feeling a little ill, but Hilary gave up half way ie we had to stop for 5 minutes. Fortunately the small Park entrance has travel pills and she improved, but didn’t eat the tea and cake, nor the lunch at Cathedral Gorge car park.
The bus is the standard here, 10m long V8 or V12 auto with the separate front and rear cabs 1.5m off ground, pretty well sprung and fitted. I watched the digital clock – 2 hrs for 55km, then 28km to Cathedral Gorge on flatter ground. The driver, JW, talked all the way in about the region; the history of the cattle barons, like John Forest who became premier, and the Duracks. We met two semi’s (truck-trailer) coming in to load cattle. And he spoke about the vast flooding in summer, the agriculture, vegetation, birds…. He pointed to steep narrow clay ridges, supposedly ‘pressure ridges’ due to the Hall Creek fault line. And of course all dates were in millions and billions.
The Bungle range is composed of the same rock forming the ridge caps found at eg Kununurra. The northern end is fairly solid, presenting a 200m high, boulder and pebble cliff face, best seen in the afternoon light. In contrast, the southern end is broken into domes due to the finer grain iron-stained sandstone with interleaved clay, looking best in the morning light. There are several walks here, some very long, but the best short trail is Cathedral Gorge, a 1.5km walk on a sand and pebble creek bed. We froze last night but at 11pm here it was 32C. Hilary was keen to see this, so I walked with her most way, then went ahead as time was running out. The last part is up a few ladders, and I didn’t think she would make it, but she did as I finished.
The gorge ends in a cave undercutting the rock; a sandy edge surrounds a small pool. The rock overhead glowed red in the reflected light, in contrast to the brilliant blue sky. A lovely sight and even Hilary was pleased to see it despite the effort. I rushed on to Piccaninny Creek lookout, another 1km – not a bad vista but nothing like the gorge. Part of the creek bed has been eroded into a clay layer forming ‘grooves’ with are also worth a shot, though the light is very strong.
After lunch we drove back the 28km and then 20 on to the north to Echidna Gorge, a narrow dry creek walk 1km into the cliff face. It ends in a boulder strewn 1m wide passage to a solid wall 200m high. Near the end is the best part, a 20m circular opening; approaching it, the afternoon sun caused the red glow again.
The 75km back was tedious apart for the low angle sun streaming through the green grass and small trees on the ridges. We briefly saw mustering on the station, again passing a road train heading in to load the cattle, drought master mostly, and cream Santa Gertruda, so stark against the dark green vegetation.
We sat around the camp fire till dinner, a little better tonight! Not as many people though.
