Bungle Bungles - Southern Part

After another good night sleep we got up early to explore the Southern Walks. The drive there was only 12km and the road was pretty good.
Even before reaching the starting point of the walks we were wowed by the scenery unfolding in front of us. The domes were popping up as well as endless fields of flowering wattle trees with bright yellow flowers.
To our happiness, we were the first ones to arrived to the carpark - yes we had it all to ourselves! To warm up, we started with the 700m short loop around the Domes - it was breathtaking - better than we have ever imagined. From The Domes we visited Cathedral Gorge, it was getting quite warm and thankfully this gorge offered quite a bit of shade and breeze to cool down. We were surprised with the amount of the toads 🐸 everywhere, some completely dried lying in various positions on their backs looking like they have been poisoned. Some parts were quite stinky as they were decaying- pretty gross so it was the best to lift our heads and admire the beauty of the surrounds rather than looking on the ground. Cathedral Gorge was spectacular and Kat tried the acoustic producing some superb singing. Yes, the acoustics were fantastic, the rest has a room for improvement 😂. We continued walking through the Piccaninny Creek that was mostly dried out with some sections having still heaps of water and fish in. Some section of the creek floor already resembled mini Bungle Bungles in the
making… lets give it another 360 million years and pop they will be there… we found a shady spot to enjoy coffee and breakfast while also feeding our eyes on the natural show in front of us.
We proceeded to walk to Whip Snake Gorge and got lost on the way despite quite clear instructions and signage… lets blame the heat for that 😉… the gorge was very nice and did not have that many toads 🐸 there. We heard some interesting sounds there, like someone is trying to pop a balloon…. So I went to investigate… holly guacamole I did not expect what I saw… a crow got himself one of the big toads 🐸, with the beak grabbed it by its leg and turn it over on its back. Then stood up on the frog legs and started to peck into the blown up frog belly… it went on and on until it popped and the crow managed to open the belly, ate a bit of insides and left it there… So at least we know now that none of the toads we saw earlier were poisoned but pecked to death. It is fascinating how nature learns to deal with the intruders and tries to eliminate the invasive introduced species.
Besides to that disturbing view, the rest was simply magical. Being surrounded by all this beauty! How lucky we are! We may not have a lot of historical buildings/recorded history in Australia but we have much more…
On the way back we also stopped at the Piccaninny Creek Lookout that yet again provided an amazing view over the differently shaped domes from every angle. It also had some very much needed shade and a good breeze so we sat down to enjoy the beauty and also our lunch. We arrived to the carpark that was rather full and sat down under the shaded area, in no time we were joined by group of tourists that looked exhausted, turned out they just walked 2km… the good thing was that the tour organiser was handing out some cold wet towels to freshen up and they even gave us some! It was fantastic, cooled us from outside while our (still) cold beer did the job from inside 😂. All together we walked about 15km today and loved it.
I am quite amazed by the double-barred finch birds, they look like miniature owls and are everywhere! We have seen a lot of different birds today including a beautifully coloured kingfisher.
We got to our home late afternoon, Kat had a shower in our improvised tree shower and I was just reading my book enjoying the ‘noise’ all the birds make. We will make some dinner now and get ready for tomorrow’s adventure.
Today, was a fantastic day, definitely one of the best on this trip……..we are in love with the Bungles!!!!Read more