Bungle Bungle Trip Report (2) – On the first day of our 3-day tour to the Bungle Bungles (Purnululu National Park), we departed Kununurra town at 6am. After a nearly 5-hour drive, we arrived at Bungle Bungle Wilderness Lodge in the national park just before noon. After checking in at the lodge, we finally headed into the Bungle Bungle Range!
Purnululu National Park, where the Bungle Bungle Range is located, is a huge national park covering an area of approximately 240,000 hectares.
As you can see from the map above, the places to visit are located on the southern side and northern side of the Bungle Bungle Range.
On the first day, we visited the southern section of the Bungle Bungle.
Our guide drove us in a 4WD, stopping at Elephant Rock, a rock formation shaped like an elephant, before we arrived at an area called Piccaninny .
This area is home to countless rock formations with unique horizontal stripes.
After parking the car at the Piccaninny car park, we headed towards the canyon called
Cathedral Gorge.
These dome-shaped rock formations with orange and grey strypes are called “Beehive”, which is a beature of the Bungle Bungle.
Such rock formations were formed over a period of 20 million years by erosion of sandstone that was deposited approximately 360 million years ago.
Along the way, we spotted some beautiful Aboriginal rock art…
Walking through the magnificent scenery of unique rock formations…
Then we entered a gorge surrounded by red rock walls.
We continued deeper into the gorge…
Finally, we reached the end of the Cathedral Gorge.
It’s an amphitheater-like space created by erosion.
There was a pool of water on the ground even during the dry season. During the wet season, water must cascade down from the cliff, and I imagine that water might roar down the walking track we have just walked.
We had a picnic lunch in this truly solemn space. After that, we went back the way we came.
Next, we walked along a track to the Piccaninny Creek Lookout .
After walking for a while, we arrived at an observation point where you can enjoy the scenery from a high vantage point.
What a wonderful view!!
The area around Piccaninny Creek is an endless parade of scenery that is typical of the Bungle Bungle.
By this time, the clouds had started to spread and the wind was strong, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to take very clear photos, but I really enjoyed the walks in this remote and wild territory. It was so fun!
Both of the walking tracks I walked this day (Cathedral Gorge & Piccaninny Creek) were easy tracks of about 3 kilometers round trip each.
In the next blog, I will write about the northern part of the Bungle Bungle, which I visited on the second day.
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