Into Purnululu

walking around the domes

into Cathedral Gorge

Yesterday was a real driving day, I guess it felt long because we didn’t leave Kununurra until quite late, but largely because the drive into Purnululu is so long. The scenery down the tarmac road from Kununurra is really nice and we got a few geocaches along the way, but then when you turn off onto the dirt for Purnululu the 4WDing really starts. It’s not so bad in terms of corrugations but you have to really slow down because of potholes, bumps, twists and turns, and lots of river crossings. There were also a lot of cars coming from the other direction and it’s quite a narrow road so that slows things down – it took us over 2 ½ hours in the end so it was dark by the time we got here, not quite what we planned but luckily again the Ralhs had got here before us and had a campsite all picked out! Another family we met at Home Valley Station in the Kimberley were also here so we’ve got the three families all together with a communal hangout area, and the kids are all having a fantastic time together.

Today we all got up at crack of dawn, had a quick breakfast and headed to do the walks in the south of the NP before it got too hot. Purnululu and the domes are definitely one of my trip highlights, they are just so stunning (and world heritage listed in fact). I can understand why a lot of people recommend doing the helicopter ride over them, it would be amazing. In fact I reckon a really amazing thing would be to go on a helicopter ride over the domes in the wet season, and see all the water pouring down them. Anyway it’s irrelevant since it was too expensive!

The stripes are caused by some layers of sediment being tightly packed and some more loosely packed, and in the loosely packed layers cyanobacteria grew and coloured it dark, as opposed to the tightly packed layers which are orange (from iron oxide). It’s an amazing effect anyway. We walked into cathedral gorge first which has amazing tall walls, then to a nice lookout at the beginning of Picaninny Creek, and then a short walk around a dome. They were all nice and short but it was still enough and quite hot by the time we finished. This afternoon we’re just hanging around, and tomorrow will attempt a couple of walks in the northern section of the park.