Wet in the Dry, The Bungle Bungles washed out, Hell’s Crack, Turkey Creek and Kununurra

In the grand scheme of things we’ve actually been quite lucky as weather goes. Most of our trip has been rained upon by sunshine with the odd (and almost malevolent) exception (King’s Canyon to mention one). Now we’ve come up to north WA in the ‘Dry’ and ventured inland to where the main attractions lie – namely the Gorges, and there’s no access. Purnululu National Park where the Bungle Bungles stand in all their glory has been closed for the past week due to rains and undriveable dirt roads. It’s an interesting area of incredible rounded layered rocks – almost like a doodle someone has ventured upon while idly sitting at a board meeting or trying to pay attention to the intricate mechanisms of DNA replication in Bio 100. It’s also home to a few magnificent gorges and a natural cathedral which appears to tower over the lucky traveller who has been able to miss the muck and make it in. The road into the park is only 53 kms but is apparently booby-trapped by numerous treacherous creeks and riverbeds taking at least 2 hours to manoeuvre through. The area was unknown to the tourist world until the mid-80’s when some vacationers happened to be flying over and noticed the incredible geological formations. You can still fly in (when the park is open) via fixed-wing or helicopter but as is the norm, they usually want an arm and leg and perhaps your first born child to do so. We’ve looked into renting a rugged 4WD that might make it in but the weather is simply not cooperating and the chances of getting there before we need to head further eastward are slim to buckleys.



We’ve had a couple days of travel since the last blog, and ventured through Hell’s Crack (otherwise known as Hall’s Creek) and onward to Turkey Creek – otherwise known as – Warmun. At Hall’s Creek we stopped for lunch, groceries and a possible visit to the Chinaman’s Wall just outside of town along a dirt track. It’s a massive natural quartz wall representing a faultline in the earth and seemingly similar in some capacity to the Great Wall of China – hence the name. We made a bee-line to the information centre on entering town and when positing the question as to whether the road to the Chinaman’s Wall was open, detected a definitive guffaw from the staff – apparently its inaccessibility was a foregone conclusion given the unseasonal rains. A visit to the IGA Xpress was also enlightening. In true governmentally-sponsored gusto and with all the best intentions, the poster for the 5+2 Veggie, fruit nutritional awareness campaign was pasted just above the fresh fruit and veggie section. The problem was that the actual fruits and veggies themselves were exceedingly and prohibitively expensive. It seems a bit odd for such basic food items, deemed essential for a healthy existence should be priced so extravagantly when the very population needing it most (Hall’s Creek is predominantly Aboriginal) can hardly shake a nickel or dime together. It’s even more difficult to understand given that Hall’s Creek is along the main highway and trucking route in the area so shouldn’t have difficulty with supply issues. Ah the hypocrisy! On a favourable note we did manage to make it to the post office just before the lock out occurred at 1pm for lunch. The kids and Jen were idly looking at the numerous books and games so often sold at Australian Post when the woman working the till suddenly announced in quite a forceful and shrill manner that we needed to get out as the door was about to close. It caught us a little off guard as it was an odd occurrence for something to shut in the middle of the day here in Australia. She let me finish my business and then essentially shackled down the office with roller door and padlocks on the outer gate. Something wasn’t quite right in Hall’s Creek – not surprised it’s developed a more cynical nomenclature.



From there we made our way to the Turkey Creek Roadhouse a hundred or so kilometres further up the road. The aboriginal name and community adjacent to the roadhouse is the Warmun Community – famous for their particular style and method of Aboriginal artwork using actual ochre from the area. After yet another damp night in a rather muddy caravan area of the roadhouse, we woke early, hoping the weather was on its way to improving. We had a leisurely breaky and then made our way into the Warmun Community to their art centre. It’s your fairly typical government housing type of set up until you swing around the back of the community to their gallery – a modern, obviously recently built structure, ironically staffed by Caucasians from South Australia. Behind the incredibly beautiful façade of the building sits an older two story building where the artists gather to produce their paintings. The kids seemed bent on bouncing on whatever presented itself to them, full of vigour and energy after a couple days of travel and almost had to be restrained outside to stop them from bouncing off paintings worth several thousands of dollars. While Piper found a stage to practice her own personal version of ballet (a sort of hip hop, eighties pop kind of wiggle) and the boys ventured across to see the artists at work, Jen and I took turns appraising the works, aiming to find yet another to dress our dwindling and as yet non-existent wall space back in Canada. The curved shapes of landscape in bold earthy colours were mesmerizing at times and we eventually found one to our liking entitled “Crocodile Hole – Flat Rock” – an instant classic! Seriously – who could walk away from such a title! The earthy tones and large basic shapes are pretty catchy too and it will adorn our walls-to-be with much grace and appreciation.



Kununurra was close at hand, so we trekked onward with high hopes that the weather would clear and we’d find plenty to see and do for the next few days. I’ve been checking the weather daily on my iPhone but hadn’t (up until this afternoon) updated my location from Broome to Kununurra – assuming that they would have essentially the same forecast. While discussing our plans for renting a 4WD with the agent at Avis and showing him the wonderful images of suns in my Broome forecast, he shook his head – thinking to himself – “some more stupid Americans” and begrudgingly took our booking. Noticing his disconcerting apprehension about our planned journey I updated to Kununurra and found the skies filled with clouds and what looked like lightning strikes – not good. Fortunately, there are a number of places in the near vicinity which should be easy to get to in Bessie and offer some exciting geological displays – if all else fails – there’s always the Hooch Distillery a few kms out of town.