I was so looking forward to going to Purnululu National Park. I had planned my whole trip to Australia around my visit to see the black and orange beehive domes of the Bungle Bungle ranges, this was somewhere I really wanted to see.
Sadly, my time in the Kimberley was hardly a roaring success. Problem after problem after problem was what I encountered initially. A series of bungles you might say.
Thankfully I’m a generally positive person and looking back, I remember the highlights with satisfaction and don’t think too much about the things that went wrong. Any experiences at the time that were tainted by problems along the way have disappeared into the recesses of my memory. But I have recorded them all, just as a reminder.
The problems started when I arrived in Kununurra on a Sunday morning and just about everything was shut. I had no car, it was horrendously hot, so walking very far wasn’t really possible. All in all it was a bit of a dead day. But the next day I was going into Purnululu National Park which I was really looking forward to.
I picked up the hire car, nowhere near as nice as the one I’d had in South Australia or in Darwin either, for that matter. It was a Mitsubishi Pajero that had done over 50,000 kilometres and had no USB port for charging my phone which was a nuisance. It also wasn’t very clean. I hadn’t had such a great car in Alice Springs with Thrifty either, maybe they were a company best avoided in the future.
I drove through the Kimberley and saw the baobab trees that Madagascar is famous for, but they do have them here in Australia too. No one quite knows how they got to Australia, but you see quite a lot of them dotted in amongst the other trees. In August the ones out by the road didn’t have any leaves on them, the ones in Kununurra had obviously been watered so they did have leaves on them. But by the side of the road, in the harsh, rainless dry season, there was no water to keep the leaves alive.
I didn’t know what the road to the Bungles would be like, I didn’t think it could be any worse than the Oodnadatta Track. And actually, it didn’t seem quite as bad. The 4WD on this Mitsubishi seemed better than on the Toyota, I didn’t seem to be sliding on the gravel like I had been on the Oodnadatta Track when it was really corrugated. I could keep up a steady 40kph which I was happy with because this road, unlike the Oodnadatta Track, was not a straight road. There were lots of twists and turns and ups and downs on this road. I could tell where the water crossings would be at the end of the wet season,. But it took me less than 2 hours to drive it, so I was happy with that.
I stopped at the Visitor Centre to pay my National Park fee and noticed when I went to the toilet it said to close the toilet lid because frogs liked to go swimming in the toilet and frogs attracted snakes who liked to eat them. After that, all the time I was in the Kimberley I looked in the toilet for frogs and snakes before I used it.
I then drove towards the wilderness lodge, first driving to the airfield to try and organise a longer helicopter flight the following day. They had a call come in while I was there for a 42 minute flight at 11am, so I jumped onto that one. Little did I know.
Then I went to the wilderness lodge and stayed there for the rest of the afternoon. I was very impressed with the friendly staff at the lodge, they all knew everyone’s name and it was very professional. I was shown to my accommodation for the next 3 nights. It was a tent. It was a large tent, it was a posh tent and it had a shower, basin and toilet in it and a floor. But it was still a tent. But if you came to the Bungles there wasn’t too much choice. You were either in a posh tent or a normal tent. So I’d chosen a posh tent. I was told there were blankets in the basket if I needed them because it got cold at night. I definitely needed them.
It was very cold at night. As I was on my own I could fold the blankets in half so I had a double blanket, so I had four layers of blankets on, but I was still cold. That was what really let the place down. Paying over $1000 for 3 nights I shouldn’t be freezing in bed at night. Even the really basic places I’d stayed had a heater in them. They needed to invest in heating the tents when people were paying that sort of money to stay there. You shouldn’t be sleeping really badly because you were so cold. The last night in particular was really bad and it was also bad at dinner because we were eating outdoors. I had a cardigan on and was shivering and had to get myself a cup of tea to try and warm up, because there were a lot of people at dinner every night and service tended to be on the slow side. Not great when you’re sitting there shivering.
The wilderness lodge was very like an upmarket safari camp. Not that I’ve been on safari or stayed at a safari camp in Africa, but from what I’ve seen from brochures and the telly of upmarket safari camps, it looked like one. And I spoke to a lady who was originally from South Africa and had recently been on safari and she said that it was exactly like the safari camps in the Kruger.
People were generally very friendly who stayed at the lodge, they sat the groups together and then put the independent travellers on tables together. I didn’t talk too much at dinner at first, but I was sitting opposite Kristina and Marcus who were German. Kristina was originally from Hamburg and wanted to move back there, but Marcus was a Bavarian and a teacher in Munich and very much into the Bavarian way of life. I asked if they lived in the city and Kristina said they did, so I asked if they knew the Rattlesnake Saloon. And they did! They went there regularly to watch the bands and said a lot of people who lived in Munich didn’t know about it because it was in the suburbs. Marcus said originally there was nothing much in that area, just the Rattlesnake and then about 12 years ago they started building houses there and completely surrounded it. He asked me how I knew about it and I said I’d been trying to find country music in Germany and it came up on my search so I went there and had a fabulous night. I never expected to be in one of the remotest parts of Australia and be talking to someone about the marvellous Rattlesnake Saloon in Munich.
The dinner service was very slow that night. Pork was on the menu and the Austrian group staying at the lodge had all decided they wouldn’t eat it and so the chef had to make them all chicken instead. We were waiting ages.
Next day was my helicopter ride, but since it wasn’t until 11, I had time to go to the southern part of the park and walk the Domes trail and Cathedral Gorge. Maybe even the Piccaninny Gorge viewpoint.
I did manage to do the Domes and Cathedral Gorge walks. This was what the Bungles were famed for, the black and orange striped domes in the southern part of the park. I loved walking amongst the domes and Cathedral Gorge lived up to its name with towering rocks surrounding you. I took a few photos and then headed off. I didn’t have enough time to do Piccaninny.
It was only just half past nine when I passed the airstrip, I wasn’t supposed to be there until 10.30, far too early to go and wait. If only I’d known. I went back to the lodge, had a quick drink and then went to the airstrip getting there just before half past ten. Then I was told, the people booked on the 11 o’clock flight had turned up early and so they’d already left! I got a lot of excuses about why they hadn’t waited, but basically it came down to the staff not looking in the diary, always assuming that people are travelling in couples and forgetting about single travellers. He said I could go on the 12.30 flight which meant me waiting around for 2 hours. If I hadn’t really wanted to do the flight I would have told them to get stuffed. Unfortunately, although this company has such disregard for its single customers they were the only ones who had a commission to fly in the park. So if I wanted to go on the flight, I would have to go with them.
I’d really got my heart set on it. I’d been emailing them since March to try and book the flight. And because of the mistake I was offered 10% off. So I decided to go. But I still wasn’t happy. When the people who had arrived early got off the helicopter, the bloke said g’day to me. I just glowered at him!
The 12.30 flight didn’t go early either, so I was waiting a full 2 hours to get into the air. However, it was an amazing flight. Seeing the domes from the air and the gorges throughout the park was spectacular. They cover a huge area and if you’ve come all this way and driven lots of dirt roads to get here, the helicopter flight is a must, despite being run by people who don’t care about single travellers. If you’re in a couple you’ll be fine, if you’re a single traveller, good luck!
The brilliant thing about these helicopter flights is that the helicopters don’t have doors on them, so you’ve got no glass obscuring the side view. I got the front seat as well, I don’t know whether that was to placate me after leaving me behind or whether I would have got the front seat anyway. I tried to look on it positively, I got my wonderful aerial view of the Bungles and I got 10% off.
That afternoon I drove to the Northern part of the park to hike the Mini Palms Gorge Trail. This is supposed to be the most difficult trail in the park and it was the pick of the northern walks. There are palm trees in the Mini Palms Gorge. It took about 2 hours as the literature advised, but I did take some time taking photos. I set off at 2 o’clock, it wasn’t really a good idea to set off much later than that even though it was still very hot at this hour.
The lady in the Visitor Centre had said that you were in and out of shade on this hike. More out than in for the most part, until you got to the Gorge itself. The first part of the hike was easy, flat and in the sun. The second part of the hike takes you into the gorge where you see the palm trees and also have to battle your way through a narrowing Gorge to get to the end of the trail.
There are lots of big boulders on this hike and you do have to squeeze through gaps between boulders and climb over rocks to follow the trail. So I squeezed through gaps between the boulders and climbed over the rocks wondering where these steps were that had replaced the most difficult part of the trail that the lady at the visitor centre had told me about. Right at the end, it turned out. But it was quite challenging to get to these steps. However, it was a magical place and the few people in a tour group were just leaving so I then had the place to myself.
It was shaded and the palms were beautifully silhouetted against the sky. After a few minutes I started to make my way back and I could have sworn I heard someone rustling about in the undergrowth. I couldn’t see a thing. It might just have been a kangaroo, but I was thinking that I was all on my own here, probably the last person of the day and what if a backpacker murderer was lurking in the trees. I wasn’t a backpacker, but that might not stop him. It was spooky. The eerie noises continued. I just kept walking until I couldn’t hear them anymore. Maybe it was my own fault for dismissing the Aboriginal superstitions as nonsense, maybe the spirits were getting their own back by scaring me a bit. They succeeded!
I had the clambering and squeezing to do again on my way back and I was relieved to get into the sunny and exposed part of the trail and out of the spooky rocks and trees. It had cooled down quite a bit by now as well. I did pass one bloke who was walking into the gorge as I was coming out. He was leaving it a bit late. I spent quite a bit of time with him the following day hiking to Whip Snake Gorge and found out that he finished the walk in the dark!
It was 4 o’clock when I got back to the car and so I decided I should drive back to the wilderness lodge. I didn’t really want to be driving these roads in the dark if I could help it. It wasn’t so good at dinner without the couple from Munich who had now departed and I tried not to dwell too much on the helicopter leaving me behind. The helicopter flight itself was great, seeing the Bungles from the air from the front seat of a helicopter with the doors off. And I’d enjoyed the walks I’d done today, the first sight of the domes as I hiked through them and the mini palms gorge walk even though I was squeezing through tight gaps and spooked by noises coming from the bushes!
The next day as I’d got the helicopter flight out of the way the day before I could concentrate on hiking for the whole day with no time constraints other than making sure I got my hiking done before it was dark and I set off to the southern part of the park to walk to Piccaninny Gorge lookout, the Window and Whip Snake Gorge which I wrote about in my previous post.
In the afternoon after a brief rest at the lodge I went back to the Northern part of the park to hike the Echidna Chasm Trail. I’d been to similar places in the States, the hike was initially walking along a dry creek bed until you got to a narrow canyon. It changes colour when the sunlight hits it in the late morning or early afternoon, but I was there a lot later than that so I missed it. It was okay. Certainly a long way down my list of best hikes in the park. That was probably because I’d not come at the optimum time to see the colour change when the sun was in the right position. But coming at this time I did have the place to myself.
It was so cold at the lodge that evening. The meals were all outdoors and it was a lot colder that night than it had been on other nights. The service was always very slow and sitting there shivering throughout the meal was not fun. It was just as bad in my tented cabin that night, even with two blankets doubled up over me I could not get warm. When they’re charging that amount of money, they really need to make sure that they have adequate heaters if people have to eat outdoors and they need to install heaters in the tented cabins as well. Being cold all night under the equivalent of four blankets was ridiculous. You don’t expect northern Australia to be so cold at night, even in winter, but this was far enough inland to have those extreme drops in temperature.
The final day I decided that I would do the Homestead Valley Hike that I hadn’t initially planned on doing, it was the only one I hadn’t done in the park now and I wanted to do them all. I noticed Joe’s camper was there who I hiked to Whip Snake Gorge with , so he must have been on the hike, he’d said he was going to do it.
The Homestead Valley Hike didn’t take very long. It was a fairly easy hike with a few steps, but generally it was quite fast walking. There were some aboriginal rock artworks located in the area, but there was no access to them. I presumed that the area where it said there was no access beyond that point was where the rock art was. Joe was at the end of the hike, we chatted a while and took a few photos and then hiked back together.
Joe and I chatted about the hikes in the park. We’d both done them all, but Joe said he didn’t think many people were serious hikers like us. I didn’t actually think I was that much of a serious hiker, I only did day hikes, not long distance overnight hikes, but since most people seemed to walk the bare minimum, in comparison I suppose I am a serious hiker. I liked doing some of the hikes, and I was certainly keen to do less popular ones so that I didn’t meet a lot of people. In the Bungles there weren’t generally huge groups because the road into the park couldn’t accommodate big coaches, but even a group of 20 was too many for me. But you didn’t have to walk very far before you had the whole place to yourself, because even the tour groups didn’t walk that far.
The road out of the park seemed a lot worse than I remembered when I’d driven in. The whole time I’d been in the Bungles the graders had been out grading the road within the National Park, but they didn’t seem to have graded the road into the park. It wasn’t in great condition and it seemed to be slower going than when I’d driven in. I remember noticing when I drove into the park, how much better the road was than the ones I’d driven in South Australia, like the Oodnadatta Track and the Painted Desert Road, but driving out, I seemed to be driving more slowly, there seemed to be more twists and turns and ups and downs. It seemed to take forever. I kept looking at the mileage and counting the kilometres down and finally I was at the main road.
The drive back to Kununurra was fine. I was fascinated by the Baobab trees and stopped to take photos several times. Some of the trees were absolute monsters. It was quiet on the roads and no one much as stopping, so again, I had the places to myself and could set up the gorilla grip to take a few photos with me in them. I headed back towards the town.
As I said at the beginning of the post, I’d longed to see the Bungles for years. I’d built my Australian itinerary around going into Purnululu National Park. And while the incident with the helicopter trip had been annoying and I’d been cold at night, those memories do fade and all in all I was happy with my decision to go there. The drive into the park had been an adventure, there were some amazing hikes and the view from the air was fabulous. Kakadu National Park was the highlight of my Australian trip, but the Bungles weren’t far behind and I would recommend fitting Purnululu National Park in if you can. You just need to bear in mind, it’s remote, it’s expensive, it’s a journey to get there and has extremes of temperature. It can get very hot in the middle of the day, but it’s freezing at night!
I travelled to Purnululu National Park in August 2019.
The Domes Trail and Cathedral Gorge hikes are in the southern part of Purnululu National Park. The Mini Palms Gorge Trail, Echidna Chasm Trail and Homestead Valley hikes are in the northern part of Purnululu National Park. These are all relatively short hikes that can be done in a maximum of a couple of hours.
It takes approximately 5 hours to drive from Kununurra to the Purnululu National Park entrance. Approximately 3 hours is on the main tarmac road from Kununurra, the last 2 hours or so is on the 4WD road to the park entrance. You must have a high clearance 4WD vehicle to drive on this road.
Entrance fee to Purnululu National Park for vehicles payable at the Visitor Centre is currently $13AUD.
I stayed in the Bungle Bungle Wilderness Lodge run by APT. I stayed in a superior tented cabin with ensuite facilities. A 3 night package of bed, breakfast and evening meal was $342AUD per night (approximately £185 per night). This was a discounted rate available for a stay of 3 nights or more. I booked directly with APT.
I did my open door helicopter flight with Helispirit. I did the Ultimate Bungle Bungle flight which is 42 minutes and currently costs $589AUD per person (approximately £335).
An excellent practical guide for the Kimberley Region is available from Kimberley Australia written by Birgit Bradtke. There is a free mini guide, but I also purchased the more in depth online guide that gives you all the information you need to self-drive to Purnululu National Park.
I rented my 4WD car from Thrifty at Kununurra Airport. A 4 day rental cost $760AUD (approximately £420).
I flew to Kununurra from Darwin with Air North. The flight takes one hour. I paid £100 for my outbound flight and £145 for my return flight. I booked my flights with Budget Air.
Read about my favourite hike in Purnululu National Park
Read my other posts about my time in Kakadu National Park in Australia
Yellow Water and Anbangbang Billabong
Read about my surreal night at the Rattlesnake Saloon in Munich