Well, this is the last day of our first week of travel - it's gone quickly. We spent the day touring the Bungle Bungles. This place has serious Wow factor!!! We set off at 0600 down the worst road I've ever driven on. It's pretty much the consensus of opinion around the place that the road is crap. We took 2 hours to do 50km. That just gets to visitor centre where you pay your money and get a permit for your car for the privilege of traversing the next 30 km of this 'beautiful' road. But getting to the other end certainly paid off. We chose to do the 3 km walk to the Cathedral Gorge. The Bungle Bungles is a sandstone formation located in the Purnululu National Park. The shapes carved by time in these rocks are unique and amazing. They are a dome like formation where the stratum (I think that's the plural of strata) of the sandstone are identical from one dome to another. I'm sure this tells of their history to those people with thick glasses that know all about this stuff.
Cathedral Gorge leads to a dead end of a huge natural amphitheatre. It is so massive, you just need to pause and take it all in. As it approached midday, the sun began to creep down the inside of the gorge walls which lights up the rich ochre tones of the sandstone. We spent an hour or so in there before heading back out because we had to be back at caravan park 80 km away by 1500 for our helicopter flight. Luckily, we allowed a little extra time - about 30km out from our destination, we destroyed a tyre. So careful not to end up with a second one, I took it a bit slower and the corrugations!!! Oh did I tell you the road was rough. Holy crap, I swear our new car is not that anymore. We made it back in one piece in time for our flight.
Well what an experience!!! The chopper took us over the entire formation which gives you the full picture of the vastness of the phenomenon. The chopper is a small one with no doors. I sat in the front and Judy and Les in the back. I wished the pilot had warned us when he was going to bank. After we landed, Les' description of how he held on at that point just cracked us up - I haven't laughed so hard for a long time. He reckoned that his arse puckered so much that the seat would have to be pulled back out. He had his legs tucked under the pilot's seat in front and hanging on to anything he could find. He reckoned if he was going to fall out, Jude and I would be stuffed because he had such a hold of the bar behind the pilot's seat, that he'd take the pilot with him - he wasn't goin alone.
What a day!!!
Links:
Google Maps reference is -17 26.49, 127 59.8833
See more images at... https://picasaweb.google.com/106361511620108780730/Day0713072012
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