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We travelled down the highway to the Bungles and turned off the road to drive the 50 plus kms in to the Park (through Mabel Downs station). It was quite a rough track with some easy creek crossings but some very bumpy and corrugated sections to contend with (and cattle of course). We took it slowly and carefully and it was about two and a half hours to travel the 50 kms to the Visitor Centre. There is a nice campsite about half way in called Calico Springs where you can stop. From there we had another drive (on a better road) of about 10 kms to our campsite in the south of the park (Walardi). The Park had only re-opened officially (after the wet season) in the last few weeks.
The Walardi campsite has no powered sites but it does have a toilet and tap water. Our camp backed on to a tributary of the Ord River. The river was dry and looked like the Avon River at Stratford (wide and a million rocks). The Ord commences it journey from the Bungles area and winds all the way to Lake Argyle.
The mozzies were particularly bad so we
Tributary of the Ord River
Behind our campsite at Walardi retreated upstairs to our bedroom!
Next morning we heard some campers set off to see the sunrise but we decided to sleep in as we only had about 15 kms to travel to arrive at the famous beehive formations of the Bungles. We arrived at the Piccaninny Creek Car Park with only a few other vehicles already present. In the Southern end of the park, the main attractions are Cathedral Gorge (a massive ampitheatre with a pool), the beehive formations (which you can walk around) and Piccaninny Creek (now just a series of pools). There was a nice lookout past the creek that we managed to walk to as well. There are longer walks too but when it's 30 plus degrees you have to be mindful of your capabilities (and the time available).
We did a circuit walk first, marvelling at the formations and looking for the pools of water that remained from the wet season. Then across to the Piccaninny Creek and "up the creek" to arrive at the lookout where we rested for a little while. After that we retraced our footsteps and then went up to Cathedral Gorge (one of the highlights of the southern
end of the park). We were lucky that a group of walkers left the gorge just before we arrived so we had the entire Cathedral to ourselves. Of course, Georgi had to throw a rock in to the pool (which had a very thick slimy green coating). The rock broke through the algal coating but was quickly enveloped again. Then we noticed that another two rocks must have been thrown in to the pond earlier as the distinctive circle was still visible. We had lunch (muesli bar and apple) in the Cathedral.
After exploring all the features that we wanted to see in the south, we drove to the north of the park and set up camp at Kurrajong. I think this was a slightly larger campsite with different sections along the banks of a (now dry) creek.
As we drove up to Kurrajong, a noise from the engine which I had previously ignored became more persistent. I lifted the bonnet and discovered that we had a problem (bearing failure on idler pulley). This was a concern as the drive belts could be thrown off the pulleys and the aircon pulley was "next door" and may also pose
a heavier load on that bearing. We decided to limp on as there was not many other alternatives.
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Greg
non-member comment
Amazing landscape Len.