Bungle Bungles

Ready for the first walk of the day



Piccaninny Creek lookout

Starting out early in the cool of the day we managed to do all of the walks in the Bungles in one day. Each walk was fairly short only being a few kilometres each. We discovered the beehive shaped sandstone formations which make up the bungles, walked through chasms and into gorges.



Dome trail walk



Cathedral Gorge



Walking into Echidna Chasm

Echidna Chasm walk

Emma and Kate both loved the Ecidna Chasm walk. The chasm was formed by a small crack in the rock which grew larger and wider over time therefore forming a chasm. As you start entering the chasm it is quite wide and then gradually gets thinner and thinner until the end.

Kununurra



Lake Kununurra - view from the holiday park




Kununurra - from Kelly's Nob

 We had so much fun for the four days we spent here. We stayed at the Kimberlyland Holiday Park and our fantastic site was by the pool. 

We caught up with just a few locals that we met in 1999 when we worked here, it was surprising how many people were still around. Everyone is just so friendly here and always happy for a chat.



Kate, Ava, Emma and Ella.



We met quite a few travelling families here and enjoyed spending time with them all at the park. The kids especially, they all had so much fun together in the pool everyday. They spent a lot of time with Ella and Ava another 2 girls who are travelling Australia.

Sunset at Kelly's Nob with the Broeren family

We enjoyed watching a sunset at Kelly’s Nob. Cruising Lake Kununurra in our tinny. We did not do any fishing on Lake Kununurra as Silver Cobbler (catfish) is the only thing you catch. But we did come across a massive Barra on the water. The locals are speculating that the dead Barra have come from Spillway creek and the flow of the water being so strong knocks them about or they have eaten a cane toad.

The big Barra we found in Lake Kununurra

Pepsi and Pizza while watching the sunset on Lake Kununurra

Stamps from Where's Wally team

Our biggest highlight was the Variety bash coming to town. On Saturday afternoon the WA Variety Bash finished their annual bash at Celebrity Park Kununurra (across the road from the park). It was fantastic being there in the middle of all the excitement. About 50 wonderful dressed up cars and drivers were giving gifts and lollies to the kids, it was just like being at a theme park having photos with fairy tale and cartoon characters and walking away with masses of giveaways.  We woke to more excitement on Sunday morning  when the NSW Variety bash cars were arriving at Celebrity Park Kununurra to start their next part of their bash. They had more participants than WA so more costumes, characters and giveaways for the girls. Such a wonderful experience for Emma and Kate.



The Teletubbies team

 


We got sharks from the shark team





Alice in Wonderland



Start line for the morning



Batman, Joker, Robin and



Bananas in PJ's



Cockburn Ranges

Corrigated Gibb River Road

Severe corrigations, rocky terrain, deep bulldust holes and miles of dry mud flats provided diverse road conditions for our trek from Kununurra to Wyndham. We travelled for 61km along the Gibb River Road to the Pentecost River crossing. For those who have seen the movie Australia much of it was filmed in the Kimberly region and the famous Pentecost River crossing is featured. The Gibb River Road is such harsh terrain, large sharp rocks and unbelievable corrigations is how I could best describe the road conditions.  Just after we turned onto the Gibb River road it followed alongside the spectacular Cockburn ranges. So the unique scenery makes up for the road conditions.  As it was later in the day when we travelled this section the colours of the ranges were so rich, the rusty red colour was amazing.

Cockburn Ranges



Catching Barra in the Pentecost River



The mullet baitfish

We made it to the Pentecost River, when Darrin and I lived in Kununurra this was one of our favourite camping and fishing spots so we were looking forward to finding some of our spots again. As we drove alongside the river we realized that after 12years of wet seasons the country had changed a bit, places we had camped had been washed away and were just piles of bulldust and debris washed up river in the wet. We managed to find a grassy spot close what we use to call the rapids.  This river is very tidal and the bigger the tide the better the fishing. We had to wait for high tide to fish as there is not much water around at low tide. Once the tide is in there is a small window of opportunity to catch that big Barra before the tide turns and rushes back out.  Darrin and Emma got some live bait (Mullet) with the cast net. So we fished only using the live bait and it was fantastic. The girls had been busting to use their had reels (they have both  found one each on this trip), so we used our old method of putting the hand reels on the ground with cans on top and when you hear the tinkling of the cans the fish is on. We had so much fun reeling in Barra after Barra, mainly small ones but we were all excited and loving the great fishing. We found that the bait fishing was a real art and it was hard to land the big Barra so we lost some good size ones. We fished for a few hours until the tide went out too much and then the Barra really slowed down. 

Sunset on the Pentecost

Our Pentecost camp

Travelling the Karungie Track

It was time to move on and start along the Karunjie  4wd track. This track travels through El Questro station country and follows along the Pentecost River for some time. It also follows the Cockburn ranges providing awesome views. We stopped at little creek to camp the night. The girls were most excited about being able to have a swim.  We were visited by two horses for the evening, they were very friendly, I think they were lonely and enjoying company. Sitting by the fire with the two horses for company was a different experience.

Friendly horses visiting our camp

Cattle tracks are easily seen

Bulldust was amazing - Gary the Safari can did well - no dust



Dry mud flats

We finished the Karunjie 4wd track travelling over the dry mud flats. Once we reached the boundary of El Questro Station the road then followed the King River. This also is a very tidal river and we happen to stop for lunch at high tide so Darrin could not resist a fish, only scoring a Catfish, or the fancy name for them up here is Silver Cobler.  

Fishing the Pentecost

Boab Prison Tree

Further along was the famous Boab Prison Tree. The girls were so excited that they could actually climb inside the tree. This tree was used to house the prisoners overnight during transportation.  We also got to see some more aboriginal rock art, although it had faded a lot some of the art was quite interesting.

The Boab Nut Artist - Clinton

We made it to the town of Wyndham. Emma and Kate spotted the big Crocodile as we drove into town, so we had to stop for a photo and a look.  It was here we found an aboriginal man carving a crocodile on a boab nut. This was such a wonderful talent to watch, the man’s name was Clinton and he was using a pocket knife to carve with. We sat with him and his wife for about an hour while he carved the nut and he had a wonderful sense of humour we had so much fun.  The girls now have a carved boab nut to remember their visit to Wyndham and the fascinating boab trees. We finished the day by enjoying a wonderful Kimberly sunset at the Five Rivers Lookout.

Sunset at Five Rivers Lookout

We headed back to Kununurra via the 4wd track which followed the Ord River.  Camping overnight at the Mambi boat ramp, we enjoyed an afternoon fishing the Ord, landing only a few small Barra.

Arriving in WA

Tea and Scones at Zebra Rock

It has taken us 15 weeks to get here but we have now crossed the WA boarder. Our first discovery for this state was the amazing and unique Zebra Rock. This is a natural rock only found in this area and it looks just like Zebra print but a beautiful pinks instead (my favourite colour). We learnt about the different types and the mining of it and then enjoyed coffee and scones. The girls have bought some raw zebra rock to make their own necklaces.

Zebra Rock showroom

Spillway creek

We then visited the Argyle Dam. After a massive wet season up here the Dam was 190 percent capacity. Seeing raging torent of water coming thru the spillway was amazing and with already 4 months since the last rains it had slowed down tremendously, it would have been such a scary sight to see at the begining of the dry.
As we crossed the bridge over spillway creek we found a colony of freshwater crocodiles finding refuge in a side drain away from the gushing waters. Most of them disappeared into the water when we got closer, but we did manage to get a photo of two not so shy ones.
Arglye Dam is just huge and having a look from the lookout we could only see just a glimpse of the size. But great to see, I just can't believe the town uses bore water, the water from Arglye dam is used for irrigation only.

Freshwater crocodiles sunning themselves

Not so shy freshies

Lake Argyle

We found a great spot to camp along the Lake Argyle Road. We sat around the fire at night and could hear the running waters of spillway creek in the distance. It was just like camping on the beach listening to the crashing waves at night.

Our camp

Victoria River

Victoria River Bridge

As we got closer to Victoria River travelling along the Victoria Highway towards Western Australia the scenery started to change. All of a sudden the gorgeous ranges start to appear. Crossing the Victoria River bridge we could not go past the opportunity to take some photos of the Victoria River and ranges.

We drove a little further on to the Old Victoria River Crossing. We spent a bit of time here splashing in the shallows of the water and it was just so beautiful we decided to camp here the night.



Our camp at Old Victoria River crossing

 We found a nice sandy spot to set up camp by the water. We enjoyed a relaxing time around here and the girls had a ball playing in the sand. The next morning Darrin and I were up early to watch the colours changing on the ranges as the sun was rising. We sat around the fire drinking our coffee and watching the magnificant birdlife.  There was a Jabiru standing in the crossing just waiting to catch a fish for breakfast. He was there for ages but we did not see him get a fish.

Jabiru looking for breakfast

Views from our camp

We continued along the Victoria Highway which followed the river along. Just west of Timber creek we turned up the Policemans point lookout road and found more spectacular views of the Victoria River. We found the tide was rushing in and great to watch. Knowing that it would be a good spot to watch the sunset we had to set up camp for the night.

Bulita homestead and tufa dams

Camping by the tufa dams

A last minute decision, we decided to drive into Gregory National Park to do the Bulita Stock Route. It was getting late in the day so we stopped and camped at the Tufa Dams on the way in. We had learnt about the formation of tufa at Flora River. It was interesting seeing the different tufa formations in the limestone creek. The tufa had formed large and smaller dams. Some of the smaller dams had dried up so we got to walk around and look at the tufa formation and there were a few large dams still with clear water for swimming.

Enjoying the tufa dams with water

Catch at Bulita Homestead

We drove on further to the Bulita Homestead for a look. It was great reading and learning about the history of life on Bulita, the hardship, the slavery and the way of life back then. Emma and Kate enjoyed going through every building learning about meat houses, workers quarters, pump houses and of course out houses. Darrin could not go past the opportunity to throw a line in the water and of course caught one. He let it go though to live another day.

Boab at Bulita

Now that we were in Boab country the girls were just mesmerised by these amazing trees. They have made plans to plant one in the backyard and make it a cubby. They had so much fun climbing the massive tree by the homestead. Boab trees live for hundreds of years so they are quite special. They are full of leaves and boab nuts in the wet season and lose their leaves in the dry to save water.

After reading a sign at the homestead we discovered that towing is not permitted on the stock route so therefore we were unable to do that trek. As we had done this trek on our first trip around Australia we knew that it was very rocky and slow track to complete.