World Heritage Bungle Bungles

in 1983, just 36 years ago, a local farmer took a Chanel 9 news reporter and film crew up in a helicopter over Purnululu to film a documentary about the area. Before then, The Bungle Bungles were one of the few undiscovered modern day places on the planet.

The traditional owners of the area are the Karjaganujaru peoples who’s ancestors roamed this land and kept its secrets safe for 20,000 years or more. Other than the farmer and a few cattle musters, nobody knew the place existed. After the coverage went to air, The Bungle Bungles became a popular tourist destination and Purnululu became a national park in 1987. The area gained World Heritage status due to its outstanding universal heritage values.

Known as The Beehives, The Bungle Bungle Range contains amazing black and orange beehive-shaped karst sandstone rising 250 metres tall.

Before we drive off-road into World Heritage, we need to drop the tyre pressure on the 4WD. It will help with grip and give a smoother ride over the terrain. The creeks are dry so no crossing through water and we pass a tractor towing two huge tyres grading the track for the season, essentially ironing out the bumps and corrugations a bit.

It’s easier than expected, a few bumps here and there and rocks to navigate but lots of fun.

We drive to the Rangers Station, about 50km in, pick up our camping permits and carry on a further 12km to Walardi Campground. It’s not busy so we select a camping area to maximise shade and then head on out to The Bungle Bungles carpark, the start of the most popular southern walks.

Today we follow the domes loop trail passing lots of colourful beehives to Cathedral Gorge, a natural red rock amphitheatre with amazing acoustics. The shear scale of the gorge is astounding and what’s left of a rock pool provides a reflection of the gorge entrance with brilliant blue sky above.

We pause and reflect for a while.

Having the rest of the day to kill, we stop at Elephant Rock on the way back to camp and spend the afternoon at camp fighting flies and finding shady spots away from the sun. It gets to 33 degrees by 9.00am and 35 degrees in late afternoon.

I go to move the 4WD underneath a tall white gum tree to set up camp and manage to run over two of our camping supplies bags...! Thankfully nothing much damaged other than plastic containers. They didn’t tell me about those obstacles on our 4 wheel drive induction class.

Theres a dry creek bed running next to camp and a great sunset viewing spot. The daylight disappears quickly. We are all very tired from an epic day and retire to bed not long after dinner.

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