We made it, at 4:15, they were meant to close at 4, but she said she would stay open incase we were late. We had a mosey around, and loved the fact they the Warman artists use ochre dug up from the traditional Gidgi lands. The style of painting varies so much from what we have seen in Australia so far, from community to community, state to state. Different stories to share and many lands to paint with different cultures. We decided since we bought some amazing art in Kununurra to let it be, as this art was well out of our budget. One 76 year old Warman artist had her art on exhibition in Paris currently. I did like Shirley Purdee's work, but again it was out of the budget, by a few grand (??)
On we went and decided to camp just roadside of the National Park , wake up at 5am to make the trip in the morning better, as we could knock it off before the "heat of the day". How wrong we were....
We get into the Station gates and travel some 10Km of 55km dirt, corrugated and rough road, which we had read and been warned verbally takes around 2 hours. YES that's 55Km road taking 2 hours to travel(??) The first 55Km of the road is actually on Mabel station and doesn't really get maintained at all. So back to the story.... 10Km in and tss tss tss, action plan... actioned! we put on our last spare and decide that Purnululu National Park wasn't for us this day. yes well we get about 7Km back (we didn't know that until later) and tss tss tss there goes our last tyre! Nick pushed the poor car along, shredding the thing and pulls over in some shade, and we have Telstra reception!!!
Yeah for Telstra
RAA, thankgod for Premium membership! After a hole lot of screwing around we had arranged for the RACWA to travel the 230Km return trip with 2 brand new tyres at $325 ea. After the RAA had forwarded a purchase order for the 150Km extra not covered by the RACWA. They would also not meet us on the dirt road, and after asking people passing us by how far we had to travel at 3Km Nick decided it was "walkable" and he would roll the tyres back if required. After he set off I had many cars stop, and after letting them know that my husband was walking received a few offers to pick him up on the way. I did what a woman does best and got on the phone to Eleanore and just over an hour later Nick had returned, two brand new tyres in tow, with the fellow that had stopped first, and offered a lift. He also stuck around and helped get them both on the rims. This was a blessing in disguise, as the bolt had slipped off the High lift Jack, and the shredded tyre was so low to the ground, we couldn't get the Jack under it. Then the compression pump blew up so we also had no means of putting air in the tyre. Craig was his name, was uber prepared, and helped out with the lot, even rolling around in the dirt and dust with Nick, and after another hour and a half we had 2 tyres ready to go.
Nick was set on going to the bungle bungles now so off we went, and true to form nearly 2 hours elapsed and we made it to the gates at 3pm. Mind you we have been on the road since 5:30am and its damn hot up here in the afternoons. I went to the gate lady and asked for some lenience as our National Park pass had expired by 4 days and explained all our drama's and she let us through, not having to pay again. (we hid the girlies well)
Was it worth it you may ask...... TOTALLY!!! We arrived at Piccaninny Gorge around 3:45 and were only 2 other cars in the car park. We decided to walk the girlies through the domes walk and to the Cathedral.
The car park, after our walk we had a night time camp shower as he had this spot all to ourselves, best location for a camp shower ever!
Walking through the iconic Domes
The downside of taking dogs into National Parks is that you have to pick them up to get them up ladders....
Cathedral Gorge....camera doesn't do it any justice
We drove through the night for another hour or so, feeling totally refreshed from our shower to get to Echidna Chasm. Surprised not to see any wildlife at all, but then when you spot a couple of cattle it all makes sense. Very poorly maintained National Park, as it was only "declared" National Park in 2003, before that it was all cattle station.
We wanted to be here for sunrise so to be able to walk the girlies before the other tourists arrived. After waking up at 4:30am we watched the sunrise at Osmand Lookout, looking over the aptly named Osmand ranges
The trek into Echidna Chasm was lovely, and through a riverbed. There were these lovely orange walls and palm trees everywhere.
It got quite confined it some spaces...
After Nick had hauled Sahara up a few ladders we made it to the absolute end of the chasm. This would be a very nice way to spend the day as it would be cool.
Notice the boulder over our heads, this was actually on top of where the ladder was to climb to the final bit. There were warning signs up saying not to stand under boulders for too long, its kind of hard when you have to climb a steep ladder.
On the way out we stopped and did this quick bushwalk where it had signs up for all the local bush foods and medicines and the traditional uses.
We had an uneventful trip back out, and managed to get out before the heat of the day and camped last night at Spring creek, which was an awesome shaded spot. We had it all to ourselves and nearly a dozen cows, then all the other travelers started rocking up through the day and by 6pm there were quite a few. We had a very rude older grey nomad couple who started there Generator at 5pm, watched movies, with the volume up so loud (probably deaf) and with the Generator on until 11pm. Then started it up at 7am the next morning! aggh!
So anyways we moved on and got into Halls Creek. Its a nice little town with an awesome IGA, so after a stock up and a refuel, oh yeah and we have purchased another 2 tyres. The place we got them from at the National Park, sold us their last two Hancook tyres at $325 ea, and they could only do other brand tyres for $280, and wanted to sell us a air compressor pump for $200. So after checking out the local Repco provider we got a mini compressor pump for $25 and two tyres for $230 each.
We are now about to set to head off to Wolfe Creek Crater, and the Tamani. Update this from Alice springs... Bye for now. Oh and if you don't hear from us again watch out for the wolf creek sequel.
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