Today we woke up to very mild weather, the coolest we have experienced for weeks now, very nice! We left Kununurra this morning and clocked over our 10,000km mark for the trip at the intersection to Halls Creek. We arrived at the Bungle Bungle National Park turn off around midday. When we got to the gate it said Caravan Park Closed! Well we drove in anyway and glad we did because we found caretakers had been put in for over the Wet Season as a trial this year for travelers still coming through wanting to stay or leave their caravans while touring the National Park. It takes a good part of a day to tour the Bungle Bungles and you need to leave your caravan somewhere as you can't take it into the National Park due to it being a rough 4wd track. Last year a couple of people had their caravans stolen because they had to leave them unattended at a roadside stop nearby, although one thief left an old caravan in place of where the late model one was stolen from! Even thieves take holidays around Australia it seems!
We set up our bush camp (no power or water) within the caravan park grounds. Its a nice shady spot with heaps of area for Lochie to play and we are one of only two campers here, so its very peaceful. The generator is running everything, the Waeco, caravan fridge, lights even the air-conditioning, it really has been a great investment!
Tomorrow we plan to get up early and tour the Bungle Bungles, then we will come back here and spend another night at our bush camp.
The Bungle Bungles are amazing! It's about a 2 hour drive over very rough and corrugated roads with several creek crossings, one was about half a meter deep! We were so surprised at the amount of water about, considering its right at the end of the dry season. We imagined that the Bungles would be like Ayers Rock in that you would see them for miles before you got to them, but it was quite the opposite. We drove and drove up and down and around normal rugged mountain ranges and then suddenly they appear in stark contrast to all that surrounds them. They are so beautifully formed! We decided to do the Cathedral Chasm walk that is 3km return. In the heat it is far enough for us! The Cathedral Chasm is amazing, it huge inside and probably about 10 degrees cooler inside! There is a pool of water inside as well, however it was very stagnant, ready for the wet season to wash it out. The whole place would be incredible to see after the wet season as there are several waterways in and around the Chasm.
Because the roads and tracks out here are so rough, unfortunately one of the air-conditioning pipes on the car suffered metal fatigue and broke so no air-cond till we get it fixed in Broome! The car sucked heaps of dust inside after the aircond broke so its a mess at the moment! We had a good time but it is rough and hot out here! We did about 200+km return of 4wd tracks from the Bungle Bungle Caravan Park which includes traversing the Mable Downs Cattle Station to get to the Purnululu National Park. We plan to drive to Fitzroy Crossing tomorrow.