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Published: June 28th 2005
Bungle bungle domes
An aerial view in an overcast day...The Kimberley is supposed to be an amazing region, kind of a "last frontier" land, hard to access, in the north of WA (WA=Western Australia) between Broome and Kununura. The problem is, you need 4WD to see most of it and some places you can only go with airplanes. I only had my lovely 2WD Nissan Pulsar and so I had to travel on the main highway (highway means a good sealed road… not more than that :-) I had a chance to see 2 of the more accessible Kimberley: Geikie gorge and the Bungle Bungles.
I left Broome Thursday afternoon for a short 400km drive to Fitzroy Crossing. The town has no backpackers, only expensive motels and campground, so I “camped” in my car. In fact it proved to be really comfortable and in a way you have a lot more privacy than in a 8 bed dorm. I slept till 8AM which hardly ever happens in a dorm! The campground was really nice with a swimming pool so I used it for a morning swim before I went to Geikie Gorge. The gorge is really lovely, carved by the water of the Fitzroy river in a land that used
to be an underwater reef once upon a time. The rock formations and the colors are really lovely. And… I got to see my first crocodile! It’s only a “freshy” - fresh water crocs are not that big and they are not very dangerous to people. Still, I wouldn’t swim there…
After driving merely 450km I reached my next destination - a roadhouse named Turkey Creek. There is absolutely nothing there except that it’s the closest place the Bungle Bungles national park. On Saturday I went on a tour to the park (rough 4WD access so no other choice for me). The park was one of the most beautiful places I saw in Australia. First we went to Echidna chasm. A chasm looks like a gorge but it is a break in the rock, not carved by water. This chasm is getting narrower and narrower as you go in. In the beginning it really reminded me of the access to Petra in Jordan and I was kind of expecting to see the red carved city appearing just around the corner. Well, it didn’t, but it was still lovely. The Aborigines have some story with an echidna there, I didn’t exactly
listen, but they believe the spirit of echidna is still there and if you go to the end of the chasm and present yourself, her spirit will always be with you. So I did, and I think the good spirit is really with me ever since!
Then we went to the more famous part of the park, with the really strange domes. I can’t really describe them; the pictures will do a better job than me. This is definitely “different” scenery! And the amazing fact is that it was “discovered” only in the 80s. Of course it was known locally but only when a TV crew came to the area for something else, one helicopter pilot took them over the domes and they were so impressed that they made a TV show about the area and exposed it to the rest of Australia and the world.
As the domes are so impressive from bird’s eye, and since I love heli flights, I went back to see the park on Sunday morning with a helicopter scenic flight. It was probably the best one I did here. In fact, the area of the chasms and gorges was even more impressive than the
domes. The weather wasn’t great, it was fully overcast and even rained a bit, which didn’t do well for the pictures, but the actual views were incredible, marvelous, stunning, breathtaking.
(Well the flight was a bit breathtaking also because it was doorless! But I chose to sit comfortably in the back seat - not as good for pictures but felt safer :-)
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