Windjana Gorge, Tunnel Creek, Fitzroy Crossing, Geikie Gorge, Old Halls Creek and the Mighty Bungle Bungles.

As you can see from the title of the blog post we've seen a few good places since our last post, which believe it or not was only a week ago. You'd think we'd be exhausted from such a huge week but to be honest one of the good things about this part of the Kimberley is that everything's pretty close together so we're feeling pretty rested.


We drove from Broome and got back onto the Gibb River Superhighway again. After heading back east for a while we turned off the Gibb for the very last time and headed south for about 25 km over some reasonably decent corrugations till we got to the Windjana NP camp grounds. Like Silent Grove the camp grounds were pretty full but we were pretty lucky in snagging a good spot near the communal firepit and the showers. The kids wasted no time in befriending another little girl and it wasn't long before we had a fire going and after dinner we kicked back and has a few beers with the neighbours.

Windjana Gorge

Next morning we did the walk through Windjana Gorge. The kids loved the part where we had to walk through a short rock tunnel to come out the other side onto a beautiful sandy beach with native fig trees growing down by the edge of the Leonard River. There were also towering rock faces on each side of the river and heaps of Freshwater crocs. In one place we counted 25 crocs. Continuing along the river there was one particularly tantalizing place where we counted 6 Barramundi sitting under a log with their noses pointing upstream. Unfortunately you can't fish here but at least I've now seen a Barra in the wild (but I can no longer claim that they don't exist as an excuse for not catching one - dammt). As we walked up the creek Croc spotting Nat saw a pair snuggling up to each other next to a vertical bank. Always in search of a good photo Nat scaled a tree with much banging and crashing and cursing and eventually managed to get right above them. From this great vantage point she lined the crocs up for a great overhead shot. Camera goes "click", crocs errupt in terror, Nat nearly soils herself...cleaver!

Windjana Gorge

Windjana Gorge

We had lunch back at camp and then headed down the track to Tunnel Creek. For this walk you follow the creek about half a kilometer through some caves. In some places you're in water that's about crotch deep and it's dark. Strangely the water at the beginning (up stream) was icy cold (enough to make your legs ache) and your 5 year old have a hissy fit (Matilda went on Nats back from this point). After a while we started to hit warmer patches (yeah and there's not enough people to be making it 'artificially' warm) and there's some little waterfalls coming from the walls - we discovered that the water from these falls is actually the source of the warmth so it must be coming from a spring or more likely from the surface. On the way back we almost struck disaster when Jess got her shoes (crocs) stuck in the mud when she was in knee deep water. As you do when your seven years old, she assumed the monster from the deep was trying to eat her feet first, so she flipped out and ran for her life leaving a shoe stuck in the mud under the water. But it was OK in the end - Jess had no sooner stopped hyperventilating when we found her shoe and pressed on. Despite the Shoe incident and the cold water, that night the kids voted Tunnel Creek the best part of the trip!


Next Morning we headed to Fitzroy Crossing. The plan was to do Geikie Gorge and then free camp 100km or so on the far side of Fitzroy. But when we got to Geike the next boat tour wasn't till 3 pm which meant that we'd be hanging around for hours and then getting to camp really late. So we decided to head back to Fitzroy, camp early and do Geikie next morning. Well it was our lucky day because with an afternoon to kill at Fitzroy Crossing what's to do? Go to the Rodeo of course! We got there in time to see the camp drafting and the bull riding of some bad-arse Brahmans with names like 'Terminator'. We loved it.

Fitzroy Crossing Rodeo

Rodeo

Evening at the rodeo

Geikie Gorge

The next morning we hit Geikie Gorge early and did the boat cruise. If you're looking for value this is the place to go - the family price was $62 to do Geikie compared to $80 per head at Katherine Gorge - sure the boats aren't as fancy but the Gorge is really beautiful and the kids counted about 40 Freshies.
After the cruise we hit the road and found our way to Old Halls Creek to camp for a few nights. Old Halls Creek is about 30km from Halls Creek and is a ghost town. Originally a gold rush town the locals voted to relocate the town back in the 1950s to its current location. There's building ruins and an old cemetery and you can Camp at the Old Halls Creek Lodge. The Lodge itself looks like it would have been beautiful in its heyday but its been allowed to decline over the years. We spent a day exploring around the area - Looking at the China Wall and panning for gold.

Geikie Gorge

It was while at the China Wall that we got our dose of 'stupid bureaucrat' for the trip. This was the only bit of mobile reception (Telstra only) that we could pick up without driving into Halls Creek, so Daz decided to call up the WA Dept of Environment and Conservation to try to confirm our campsite booking for the Bungle Bungles. Camping there is by booking only and he'd booked online about a week ago. They're supposed to send you a booking confirmation by email, but in our case they took our money but we didn't get the email (I guess a decent Content Management System is lacking at the DEC - hope Karl's working on that..) Anyhow we were worried that we'd rock up to the Bungles after driving in on the notoriously difficult 70km 4wd track and find our booking failed...so we tried to call them from the China Wall. Well the stupid switch girl kept answering the phone and then after hearing our story she'd transfer us to (after the 9th bloody phone call) what would appear to be a random phone number:

• FAX machine - 1
• Voicemail - 4
• Mining Company - 1
• Drop out on transfer - 2
• Useless chick who didn't know that the bungles had camp bookings -  1

China Wall

By this time Daz was frothing at the mouth and on the 10th call he asked for the 'complaints department' (btw it's worth noting that it was the same moron answering the phone everytime) so this time when she transferred us we didn't get the complaints department at all....but guess who we DID get? Yep the camp booking people.*sigh*. They confirmed our booking and sent the required email. Clap clap for the DEC...that wasn't too difficult at all!!

After that we had a crack gold panning but all we got was achy break backs (people who fossick for gold for a living earn every cent the hard way I reckon....Nat's back was in agony after a few hours of panning) so we gave up and went back to camp to cook roast pork for dinner.






Next morning it was of to the Bungle Bungles. We'd heard some horror stories about the road into this place and they are mostly true(ish). It's not an extreme 4wd track but it starts corrugated and after a while gets windy with creek crossings with fairly steep entry and exits. People with dual axle caravans tend to leave them at the start of the track but you can get an off road camper in without problems (it's getting that would prove the challenge). As we drove in the Osmund Ranges loom up and are quite spectacular, but eventually (after about 2 hrs) we could see the Bungle Ranges with their characteristic stripes. Happily our camp site was waiting for us although we were a bit miffed by the lack of fire place. A bit of info that we didn't pick up on in any of the Bungle literature was that you can't take firewood into the Bungles from outside, nor can you collect firewood at the Bungles...so given that there's a few communal fire rings (they're no longer at each camp site) where do you suppose you can get wood to burn? The answer is that a DEC volunteer worker drives around each evening and drops a ration of 9 pieces of wood next to each communal fire ring. Where did she get the wood from? OK get this.....they get Jarrah wood shipped (by boat) from Busselton (south of Perth) to Derby and then they truck it to the Bungles. Why? Because there might be ants or termites or seeds in wood that campers bring in. As my 7 year old would say...Re-dic-li-ous!





OK so the firewood issue aside we absolutely loved the Bungles. If you go to only one place in the Kimberley in your life, make it the Bungles...this place just makes you shake you head in wonder. For some reason I was expecting them to be a fairly isolated bunch of rocks, but when you see how big the area is that is covered by the honeycomb formations it blows your mind. Every way you turn there is a miracle of nature. The first day we visited the honeycombs on the southern side of the ranges and walked up to Cathedral Gorge and Picaninny Lookout (this is lookout from where the picture at the top of the blog site is taken). After that we lashed out and went on a chopper flight over the Bungles..it was orsm - and seeing as the booking man remembered us from Mitchell Falls we got it at mates Rates!

Picaninny Creek

Bungles by air

Bungles -by air

Next day we explored the northern end of the Bungles. There's less of the honeycombes but this side has big chasms into the rock that you can walk up. If you're wondering if these are worth exploring how's this for a reference: Both Jess and Matilda walked 8km (Echidna Chasm and Mini Palms Gorge) before lunchtme without a single word of complaint! We loved it.

Bungle Ranges

Northern Side of the Bungle ranges

Mini Palms Gorge - Bungles

All good things must come to an end, and so it was with our Bungle stay. Next day it was time to leave....but as it was Friday the 13th something bad had to happen. As we were drivinnhg out of the 4wd track Daz encountered some traffic coming head on at a narrow part of the road. Being the good bloke he is he pulled right over to make room to pass. It didn't look soft but the side of the road was actually really wet sloppy mud underneath and in the blink of an eye the left wheels were seriously bogged and we weren't going anywhere. Luckely/ embarrassingly there were soon plenty of people lined up and giving advice and offers of help (the bloke heading the opposite way stopped to help too so we had the road blocked till we were out) I'm deeply ashamed to say that for the first time in its life our Patrol had to get snatched out of a bog by a Toyota. (Dad I know you'll be gracious about that and won't rub it in at ALL will you)

Anyway, back on track again and we back at Halls Creek for a top up. Tonight we'll be a Wolfe Creek for our list night in WA (yikes!!) as we head across the Tanami towards Alice Springs.