We set off on our first walk at 8:30am at the north end of the park. It gets pretty warm here quickly so an early start was welcomed. Our aim was to explore Echidna Chasm a short 1.4 km walk which starts with some open air walking before you enter into the chasm, the shade was much appreciated by the walkers and the plants as it became quite lush with palms adorning everywhere.
We noticed the there were some really impressive termite mounds perched on the incredibly step cliff faces. They were clearly the over achieving termites but we not really sure why they built them where they did, clearly competition wasn’t an issue.
The chasm itself was really impressive narrowing to the point you could touch both sides at once, with walls 180m high on either. The light coming through and bouncing off the red rock walls just can’t be captured with a camera. Hopefully some of these pictures below give you some idea, but don’t really do it justice.
<photos of echidna >
A quick rest and then we headed off to the second walk of the day into Mini Palms (2.2km each way). Similar start to the first walk but the temps were up into at least the high 20’s, if not more by now. The shade couldn’t come fast enough. The gorge itself took a few steps to get to but it was just an amazing spectacle. Photos once again just don’t convey the size of it.
<photos of mini palms>
We got home by 1:30pm to the relief of all. The kids had done a great job, being the first walks of the trip. It was a lovely 30’ish degrees by now and fairly warm. We soaked up the warmth whilst chilling the afternoon away. We had a lovely dinner of roast lamb and veggies shared amongst the RossPots (our communal group name) that evening.
One thing the north side of the park doesn’t have is the signature beehive shape rocks, this we found out, was the south side of the park’s speciality. We also have decided against doing the helicopter rides over the Bungles Bungles opting to focus our big dollar adventures on the Horizontal Falls as the boys have seen most of what the park can offer where they won’t be able to see any of the falls if we didn’t do a tour.
Day 2 of the walks shifted our focus to the South side of the parks with the beehives coming into view pretty early. it was a 28km drive from our camp at Kurrajong so leaving early to get the walk done out of the heat was a good idea. We were in the car before 8am and walking by 8:30am. Making our way through The Domes before heading into the simply mind blowing Cathedral Gorge. An amazing place and words struggle to convey.
<pictures off domes and Cathedral gorge>
The final stop for the morning was the Piccaninny Gorge Lookout. Maybe we should have done this walk first as it was getting fairly warm by this stage. There was a lovely view at the end overlooking the domed landscape, the heat possibly meant that not everyone appreciated it. We got back to camp around 12:30pm and retreated to the shade offered by the campers for the afternoon to knock off some journal work and that’s where this is typed up.
<pictures from piccaninny gorge>
We head off tomorrow making our way north to Kunnanurra. Hopefully on the way we get to do the tour of the largest diamond mind in the world, the Argyle Diamond Mine. Don’t have tickets so lets see how we go.
Other than that, two things are calling rather loudly in Kunnanurra:
1) the need to sort out the Philpot’s trailer that has an amazing ability to drain batteries and
2) the call for shampoo and conditioner and cleaner bodies. After 6 days away on the road a nice shower is more than welcome. We will also stock up with groceries and goodies for the next few days before we head towards the Lake Argyle Resort. Yes you heard right, the Ross Family are staying a resort! Stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment