Bungle Bungles day 2

  07/09/2011
   After yesterdays bit of a walk round we slept like logs last night, but were up early enough for breakfast . By 10 30 our group of 4 increased to 6 after we had driven out to Bellburn airstrip to collect a couple of ladies who arrived by Alligator Airways. We now have to travel in a 16 seat all terrain bus. A short drive to the start of todays walkabout along Piccaninny Creek. Picaninny is still P C here as it is a term the local Aborigines use for their youngsters. We walked up the dry river bed for about 2K’s to a lookout, from which we could see more of the famous Bungle Bungle Beehive domes.  In amongst these iconic domes, as we followed the creek, we realised how huge an area these sandstone beehives cover. Truly breathtaking, the “Wow” factor.
  Then another 2K walk in the opposite direction to Cathedral Gorge, by now the temperature was up to 37C. Once into the gorge we found some shade and the temperature dropped quite a bit, feeling comfortable enough to have our packed lunches, which we had carried with us, including 3 bottles of water each.  Cathedral gorge culminates in a massive cave, maybe 200m across, perfectly round with the remains of the wet seasons rainfall in the bottom, now a small pool with a few little fish, and a resident water monitor lizard, who kindly popped up out of the water for a photo shoot. He was about 2 ft long. Lunch over we walked back out into the baking sunshine and back through the 200ft beehive domes to the Piccaninny Creek car park and the relief of an air conditioned bus. On the return journey back to bush camp we stopped to photo a rock formation that resembles , with a bit of imagination, a couple of elephant heads. Judge for yourselves!
 Back at camp we were served late afternoon tea and buns, I settled for another couple of litres of water! It was time to say goodbye to our English friends of the last 2 days and the 2 ladies who flew in this morning as they were all flying out again from Bellburn International , back to Kununurra. This left us poor people to be driven out of the Bungle Bungles, with Bruce and his 4WD, after the experience of a lifetime. On the way out we were lucky enough to see a couple of species of birds we hadn’t clocked before, plus a dingo pup that posed for photos! --- and kangaroos for fun.  Eventually we arrived back at Turkey Creek about 7pm.

        Bruce Russell, our guide over the last couple of days has a C V you couldn’t make up. We read in a book (written by a local, the man that set up Bellburn camp and employs Bruce) a sort of who’s who of the area, Bruce, for some time worked in a travelling circus as a lion tamer, after that he became a journalist, and eventually editor of a Western Australian newspaper. He works 6 months of the year as a travel guide and the remainder a reporter for ABC Television. He has been a cattle musterer and we think spent time in the military. He has a degree in Biology and also knows a lot about rocks. An amazing man, living in an amazing part of Western Australia.---------oh, and he can play the bagpipes!