Cinderella didn't go to the Bungles

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Day 155 - Bungle Bungles

5.30am appears to be our new wake up time, three days on the trot suggests that’s the go for WA! The sun is always up bright and early which brings the birds out so we have little or no chance of remaining asleep when the dawn chorus orchestra kicks off!
A quick check on our mobile phone brings the astonishing news from the National Finals back home (via Emma!) that The Dogs Bollocks team have indeed taken the top honours within The Wild Bunch with their slingshot dragster Ramraider! If you read yesterday’s blog then you will know we went to bed believing that Crazy Chris had finally managed to secure the Wild Bunch #1 spot having made it through the quarter final round of competition and then having the deserved bye run into the final. He was one-thousandth off his dial in so was pretty much unbeatable but disaster struck when a valve shot through the front of the engine and the team’s championship hopes shot out with it. With Ed having made it to the final in Ramraider that gave The Dogs Bollocks team enough points for a clean sweep across the board - they’ve won everything there was to win this year and we’re very proud of them. We’re gutted for Chris, Claire and Mark to have lost out in the way they did and hope that they are quickly rebuilt for the start of next season. There are some photo’s from the webcam of the excellent Eurodragstersite too on Webcam pics of The Wild Bunch from National Finals at Santa Pod.

Dar catches some extra zzzz’s whilst I boot up the laptop with every intention of getting another blog uploaded. Instead I fall into a congratulations conversation with Ed, as did Dar when he woke up! Time flies when you’re chatting!

We shot round to the Hidden Valley campground in town to take back the WWOOF book and poetry CDs lent to us by the lovely Belinda & co. We really hope that we’ll meet this lovely family again somewhere down the road but we say cheerio for now.

It doesn’t take us long to pack up and we’re driving out the gate well before 9am heading for Warnum (Turkey Creek). This is where we understand there is a caravan storage place at the roadhouse and as it’s only 50kms from the Bungle Bungles it means we don’t have to travel too far to pick the caravan back up. The Bungle Bungles is another place we can’t take our beloved caravan too as the road is so rough that caravans are actually banned!

As we go further along the Great Northern Highway we find it’s undergoing some extensive renovations at the moment so much of the road we travel on is a mixture of gravel and dust! A bit ironic considering that we try to avoid this sort of thing with the caravan but it’s a good road and the new one looks even better!

We were right about the storage yard and in fact we have a choice of where to store good old Sweetie. There’s the caravan park round the back of the roadhouse where a powered site costs you $28 per night or unpowered $20 and there’s also the storage facility across the road which is $10 per night. The lady says they’ve had over 600 caravans parked up with them this year and never had any troubles so we plumb for the storage yard and leave Sweetie tucked up there with the fridge vent as shaded as an open yard gets! We’ll be back to collect her in a couple of days.

Without the caravan on the back we can pick up a bit more speed on the highway and make it in good time to the turn off for the Bungle Bungles, the start of our next adventure. We’re led to believe that the road is extremely rough! When Andy and Caroline of Kangaroojack fame traversed it a couple of months back they said it was rough but managed the journey in an 1hr and a ½. We’re not sure how much worse it will have got but we’re about to find out!

You’re presented with a gate to open in order to start the drive towards the National Park. The initial section covers land owned by Mabel Downs Station so there are warnings about free range cattle and that we should be respectful and drive accordingly. No problem there, we’re trying to look after our car!

We’re now off anything that remotely resembles bitumen and it’s 53 kms to the visitor centre from this point. The road gets progressively worse as we drive through, a mixture of gravel, bull dust and the dreaded corrugations plus the expected low level water crossings and rocky conditions in places! We pass two Britz 4WD campervans who have pulled over to the side so we stop and check that they are ok but they are so we continue on. We can see two campervans heading towards us at quite a speed with bull dust flying everywhere. The road forks here so you can go left, right or indeed through the middle and Dar chooses left where one of the campervans is not throwing quite so much bull dust in the air! We manage it easily and are pleased to see neither campervan gets bogged in. Up ahead a tour bus flags us down to let us know that there’s a guy working on his car just around the corner so we creep around so as not to kick up too much dust (don’t want another “It’s not Bathurst” comment) and check to see if he needs any help. Somebody else has already stopped and there’s two pairs of feet poking out from under the side, it looks like a half shaft has gone but they say they’re fine so we travel on.

Just after the first crossing that actually has water in it we happen upon another 4WD hired campervan so stop again to make sure the occupants are ok. One of the chaps gets out of the vehicle to ask us to speak to the ranger when we get to the visitor centre. They have been here overnight since their gearbox packed up but were under the impression that a tow truck had been arranged to collect them yesterday but nobody has turned up as yet. We say that we’ll pass the message on when we get there and wish them luck. It’s a public holiday today as WA celebrates the Queen’s birthday so we would be very surprised if anyone was coming from Kununurra or Halls Creek on a recovery job but they might be lucky, fingers crossed for them anyway.

With all these broken down vehicles you can see how rough this road is and with the best driving in the world you might still be unlucky to have a breakage out here in the middle of nowhere. We start to feel a little bit vulnerable because despite having spare tyres, tools, jacks, UHF radio & plenty of water what we don’t have is a satellite phone and these are the only ones which are reliable when travelling into the remote parts of Australia. If we were to breakdown (touching wood and praying to the big man that we don’t of course) then we would be relying on somebody else to make a phone call to our recovery company for us and that’s a pretty big ask when you’re in the middle of nowhere! Next time we have internet access I think I’ll be checking E-bay for satellite phones!

There are a further two crossings with water and the road continues in its legendary rough guise until we reach the visitors centre. Our journey has taken us just short of two hours to complete the 53 kms. We’re welcomed by the lady behind the counter who checks us in and takes our previously hard earned $44 for our two night stay. With the guide pamphlet in hand we set off in the direction of the Kurrajong Campsite as this is closer to the walks we want to do in the morning. I chuckle at the ‘Cinderella didn’t go to the Bungles’ section within the pamphlet which is aimed at preparing people for the heat among other things. Being here is all about roughing it so glass slippers, fancy frock and tiara are not required! It makes me think back to the stunning young lady we happened upon during our Valley of the Winds walk in the Olgas when she had done 7kms in hotpants, the briefest of brief tops, stockings and high heels, oh and her diamond navel stud eh Tony! Wink Wink!

It’s a pretty dusty place in here and the campground is certainly no grassy oasis but it’s spacious, has plenty of toilets and we’re right next to the bush should any wildlife care to visit! There is a total fire ban throughout the park which has buggered our plans for cooking a stew tonight unless we are allowed to cook in our gas bottle pot but we doubt it. We certainly don’t want to be responsible for sparking off a bush fire out here so we decide that when the time comes we’ll just ask the neighbours nicely to use some of their gas.

With everything set up we decided to check out the Kungkalahayi Lookout which is recommended for a sunset viewing and luckily enough we’d timed things just right! It’s an easy place to while away the hours looking out over the spinifex covered ridges and the 360 degree view of the western escarpment of the Bungle Bungles. Awesome. The sun fades from the sky but it doesn’t take the light with it immediately so we do have time to make it back down the track and almost back to camp before it gets dark!

We sit for a while contemplating what to do about dinner, we’ve got plenty of food and the meat element is already cooked but it would be nicer to eat if the veggies were cooked and everything was hot! We summon up the courage and approach the neighbours!

Heinz and Frianz welcome us with open arms, their hospitality was so fantastic and we rewarded them with cold beers! We laugh out loud when we find out Frianz now lives in Box Hill North (where we started our adventure from) which is just a bit of a coincidence! They are travelling back towards Perth where Heinz lives but there will be no normal highway for them as they are taking in the Tanami Track and the Gunbarrel to name but two outback roads with serious reputations!

We eat our stew, Heinz tastes a bit too just to check we’re eating ok and with that we say goodnight to the guys and thank them again for their company, gas and the dinner table they laid on for us! We very much hope to catch up with them when we reach Perth.

Back to the tent we go for our first night ‘under canvas’ and hopefully a good night’s sleep!

Dar and Sar

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