Week 15
Hi Everyone, At the start of Week 15, we packed up the tent set up the day before at the Windjana Gorge. As soon as we had packed the tents and had breakfast we drove to a car park at the entrance of the gorge. We hopped out of the car, put on our hats, and put our drink bottles and James into the backpack. We were ready for an exhausting walk, which is exactly how it turned out. Seven kilometres walking on sand, dirt, uphill and downhill, in the sun, with little shade. We walked through a short natural cave and then saw the river on our left. We followed the path, and other people’s footsteps. We saw a few crocodiles in the river and some lovely red/orange faces of the gorge. Eventually, we came to the end of the walk, and I didn’t really feel like going back the way that we had just come. But it was either that, or sit there forever until the crocodiles got hungry. So we walked back. On the way back we stopped to see if any assistance could be lent to an elderly lady lying on the ground, looking rather unwell. It was too hot and humid. We saw the ranger equipped with a stretcher shortly after. The next day, we took a track that led to Bell Gorge. The walk started off a bit rocky. There were rocks cluttered all over the ground, making it hard to go over, while going downhill. We came to a river that we crossed on surfaced stones, then continued our walk on a really rocky path, except this time the rocks were all loose. After that treacherous track, we came to a river. Well, it was still enough to be a lake but it was flowing, down a waterfall that I had been hearing for a while. At the waterfall, there was a track that led off to the bottom of the falls. Unfortunately, the path went across the river and some of the stones would have required a big jump. The jump might have been possible but we were not going to risk it with our camera equipment. Eventually, I found another way. Alistair was doubtful and kindly let me go first. It was a big jump too, but it was possible with the cameras. There was a little rock that we jumped off, and a big rock that we landed on, easy enough right. Except in reverse. We didn’t realise at the time that it would be a very difficult jump going the other way. Ali and I continued the walk that led uphill. It was hard work but eventually we started to go downhill. It’s just that it was a sharp descent and there was heaps of spiky spinifex grass. Eventually though, we reached the bottom and we were glad that there was shade that was being created by the gorge’s walls. We had only been looking down into the Bell Gorge earlier and I hadn’t realised how big it was. After a little drive, we took another walk at Adcock Gorge. The road in was fairly serious, with deep water crossings and steep inclines of up to two metres to navigate over.It was a short walk and only Dad, Ali and I went. There was a beautiful swimming spot and it was the right temperature and ‘everything’! So we decided to continue on driving. We stayed the night at Manning Gorge. Unfortunately we didn’t have the time and energy to do the three hour walk around it that was said to be excellent, but did enjoy the swimming with the ‘freshies’ near the camp. The next day, we took about 300 photos of the King Leopold Ranges. We stopped off for a break at Emma’s Gorge. Well, at least Mum, Dad and James got a break. Alistair and I armed ourselves with cameras, walkie-talkies and hats. At the end of the walk, there was a giant waterfall. Not in width like the last one but in height. The water was warm and there were other mini waterfalls cascading off the sides of the gorge. After a few photos and videos, Alistair and I walked back the car and found that our walkie-talkies had been faulty. It was getting really late when we got into Wyndam. So we drove to a hotel for $250. Dad and I checked it out and, let’s just say that we’d both rather sleep in our tents for free. We gave the key back and rang the other places in Wyndam while watching the sunset over the Five Rivers Lookout. No luck. The sunset was really pretty but it was really late and we were tired with nowhere to stay. “We could sleep in the car,” I suggested. I looked at the time in the car and it said 7:30 andit was really dark. We had dinner at a cool place opposite the run down pub. Barra and salad. In the end, we found a site 30 kilometres out of Wyndam. We were setting up, when the director of a new film came and advised us that we were in the middle of his set. We moved a kilometer further along the mud flats. We just set up one tent that we all squished into. The next morning we looked around and could see the film set of a movie called Satellite. We also noticed the beautiful area that we were in. There were mountain ranges in the distance, a eucalyptus forest nearby and spinifex grass swaying in the warm morning wind. I couldn’t believe that we’d camped here at night and completely missed all of this. We drove into Wyndam and went to the Port where we drove around the ‘U’ shaped wharf. Then we drove to the dreamtime statues that were in a poor shape. There was a dingo statue with it’s head bashed in, half the statues had been splattered with paint, and a tall statue of an aboriginal man was holding a broken spear. There were aborigines camped in the gazebo and men from the local jail cleaning up all their mess. A sad sight. After that, we drove to the Five Rivers Lookout again. This time though, we actually saw the five rivers joining together to make one river that I wouldn’t want to try to swim across. Might’ve made a good canoe race though. Lots of ‘snappers’. Our last stop in Wyndam was to take a picture of the Giant Crocodile. | After Wyndam, we went to Parrys Bbillabong. It was the best one that I’d ever been to, but I haven’t been to many billabongs. I saw one of my favourite birds there. The Comb-Crested Jacana, sometimes known as the Lotusbird. They have skinny green legs and a red comb where other birds would have a crest. I love the way that they walk across water and lilypads. It seems that it doesn’t really matter what’s beneath their feet. We also saw a saltwater crocodile that got really close to a crane. I had my video camera set on it but unfortunately there was no gruesome action. We then got back into the car and drove to, ‘The Grotto.’ We walked down the side of a gorge to get there. The Grotto was basically this green algae-infested swimming hole with a tree nearby that had a swing tied to it. The people need not worry about hitting the bottom, as it was 300+ metres deep. We stayed the night at the Bungle Bungles Caravan Park. It had a few coach groups that we encountered the next day at the Bungle Bungles. We got into the Bungle Bungles for free as we had a WA National Parks pass. We first drove to the Cathedral Gorge. But before going into the Gorge, we did another walk that was connected to it called the Dome Walk. At the end of the walk, there was a disgusting puddle of water that had a layer of algae on the top of it so we couldn’t tell the colour of the water. I’m guessing that it was a murky green underneath though. We then did the Cathedral Gorge Walk. It was really long and tiring. At the end of it though, it is actually hard to describe, but the main thoughts coming into my mind are: big, huge, enormous, giant, the juggernaut of all gorges, really really really big, huge, enormous and giant. You would have to look at it in our Week 15 Videos. We then drove to the Echidna Chasm, but there was nothing small or echidna-ish about that either. We started the walk on a riverbed, which was really annoying as the stones were making walking difficult. Eventually, we reached the entrance of the Chasm. There were plenty of palm trees around. When we entered, the ground didn’t change much, but it was a lot cooler with the shade. We kept walking, further and further into the chasm. We had to climb over a few rocks and a few were so big that there had to be a ladder so that we could get over them. At the end of the chasm, the walls came together creating a high narrow pass. The chasm went for some distance, perhaps 200 meters. It was made of large river rocks. Our next stop was at the dreaded Mini Palms Walk. It was definitely the hardest walk that we did that day. Mum and James didn’t come, and I wished that I hadn’t. It started off easily, with hard dirt under our feet, but then we were forced onto a riverbed. This one was worse than Echidna Chasm’s. My feet ached and I twisted my ankle. After we had got out of there, we were back on hard dirt again. But I stepped on a stick and it went straight up my pants and scratched my legs badly, even though I was wearing long pants. I noticed the palms were getting bigger and I had no idea why they had called it Mini Palms. When we got to the end of the walk, I was so disappointed, Dad was too. It used to continue on, but recent floods had filled the gorge with grey mud. We could see the tips of the palms poking out from the mud.We only had to look at the palms behind us to figure out how deep that dirty grey dirt went down. We climbed over the fence and with a bit of jumping, we had found ourselves standing on top of the dirt in the moon scape that was now the gorge.. We could see that we weren’t the only ones who had come down from just looking at other people’s footprints. We started walking towards a giant cave at the end of the gorge. On the way, my foot fell through the layer of the dirt, and for a nasty moment I thought that my body was going to be following, but it didn’t. I got my foot out and saw that there was the top of a palm tree at the bottom of the hole that I had created. After we had a quick look at the cave, we walked back. It turned out that we had been gone a couple of hours. We drove to a lookout next, and watched the sun set. We had to keep driving though, to limit the time that we were driving in the dark. When we got back, I was happy to lie on my bed. I was surprised that we actually managed to do the Bungle Bungles in a day, rather than three. The next day, we drove to Kunnanara, where we set up the tents and relaxed for the afternoon. The next morning though, we packed up the tents and headed up to a lookout to see all of Kunnanara. After that, we went for a short walk in what is commonly named, the ‘Mini Bungle Bungles’ as it has the same orange and grey pattern. After the walk, we went to Lake Argyle, a man made lake created by using a giant dam. But the lake was giant too. We had a quick break there and left the dam. At the end of the week, after passing the Northern Territory border, we discovered that we had broken two records. One, the price for gas. It was at 147.4 cents per litre. Two, the speed limit. There were two signs that we saw right after the border that said ‘130’ with a red circle around it, the speed limit. And that’s what we did on our fifteenth week on our Journey Around Australia. Cameron |
