Australia - Darwin to Broome: Part Two - Kununurra and the Bungle Bungles

At the end of Part One we were on the seemingly endless drive through the Kimberley region from Katherine to Kununurra.  We'd had dinner at the local Katherine Golf and Country Club, which welcomes visitors as long as they aren't wearing singlets or work boots.  

The bar doubled as a TAB and in general it was the sort of place where you puff on your asthma inhaler then go outside for a couple of ciggies before making a second pass at the bainmarie.

next corner?

Man, you don't realise how big and empty this country is until you drive it.

The one change in the landscape is the appearance of the fabulously rotund Boab trees.  These fat babies vary in size according to age, and there are giants that are several hundred years old, many likely over a thousand years old.   They're deciduous lose their leaves in the dry, but as we reach Kununurra and a greater water source,  we notice more keep their leaves. The fruit is very high in vitamin C and traditional food source for Aborigines.

The hunter-gatherer becomes a tree hugger

After endless red dust and brown grass as our constant companions we cross the Northern Territory into Western Australia.   Nothing changes.    We pass through a border check,  where they ensure we are not transporting cane toads or fresh fruit and vegetables.  Drugs and alcohol are fine though.

Turn the clock back a couple of hours and 40kms from the border we arrive in Kununurra.  What a difference water makes.  The town (pop 7,000, tripling in the tourist season and harvest times) was originally settled to service the Ord River irrigation system and the surrounds are now expansive agricultural land growing melons, mangoes, chickpeas, bananas, citrus and other tropical crops, but also sandalwood which fetches good prices for both the oil and wood.  It's positively lush after the land we've driven through.

An hour drive west along the Gibb River Road and we reach Emma Gorge, part of the massive El Questro station.  We have a couple of nights in rather nice safari tents and spend the days walking the gorges and finding swimming holes.  At the natural oasis of Zebedee Springs the pools are thermal and the palms make it feel like you are in an expensively landscaped luxury spa resort.

thermal luxury in the middle of nowhere

A flight over the area and another 250kms south takes us over  the green and verdant cropping lands, Lake Argyle,  the Bungle Bungles and Argyle Diamond Mine.  Lake Argyle is massive and, of course, even more massive in the wet.  Apparently you can water ski 60kms from the north end of the lake to the south end without making a turn.  And I'd suggest you do it without falling off as there are approximately 30,000 crocs living in those waters.

Lake Argyle with its thousands of islands and even more crocs

The diamond mine is not as huge  - about 1600m by 600 m - but a lot uglier.  They initially underestimated the size of the strike and have now had to go underground; the walls of the open pit became too steep and liable to collapse as they went deeper.  The volume of mined diamonds is the largest in the world, however most are industrial quality as opposed to those sparkly ones you see on the bodies of the rich and famous.

There's diamonds in them there hills

I hadn't realised how seismic Australia was until we flew over this area. Between 375 and 500 million years ago active faults changed the landscape.  It's awesome - and I mean that literally.


Our flight also takes us over Purnululu National Park and the Bungle Bungles, a geographic oddity of beehive shaped towers, only  brought to general attention in 1982 when a documentary film crew was in Kununurra.  In the pub one night they were asked by a local helicopter pilot if they were including the Bungle Bungles in their story.  "The what?" was the response, no-one other the local aborigines and cattle station pilots having seen them.  It's now a World Heritage site.  

and we thought we had seismic shift in New Zealand

Bungles Bungles from the air

From the main road it's nearly two hours on a rough 4WD track to get into the Bungle Bungle formations - you would have had to be seriously lost to stumble on them.  And when you get there it is spectacular, but hot as hell with no shade until you get up into one of the canyons.  The layers are made up of sandstone and compressed pebbles and stones cemented together by finer material, and the shapes have been formed over thousands of years of wind from the desert, and rain.  The rich red layer comes from the iron and manganese in the sandstone and the darker layers, which hold more moisture, are an algal growth called cyanobacteria.  

Purnululu National Park -  walking in to the Bungle Bungles

inside Cathedral canyon

The contrast from drought dryness to lush growth when there's water about means you just don't know what you will find next.  In the gorges we were stunned to find palm trees and the sorts of flora you'd find in a much less harsh climate. The massive rock formations and folded terrain take your breath away. Spending time in the landscape here puts meaning back into the words amazing, spectacular and awesome. 

sunset at Lake Kununurra - our cabin looked out over this view

Australia - Darwin to Broome: Part One

It's the 19th February 1942, I'm on the wing of a Kittyhawk being strafed by Japanese Zeros -  I’m hit - now under parachute witnessing the destruction of the harbour beneath me.  Now I’m on the deck of a destroyer at the wharf and loading supplies when a bombing run blows out the deck beneath me and I’m swimming in the burning sea.  

Really I’m sitting on a swivel chair wearing a virtual reality headset experiencing the Japanese bombing of Darwin Harbour.

Flying into Darwin

This VR experience is part of an excellent exhibition at Stokes Hill Wharf that includes interactive storytelling, a full size replica of a Zero, and a slightly weird hologram experience where the Commanding Officer of the USS William B Preston relays his experience of the bombing of Darwin.  (More on WW2 and the Northern Territory in a future episode)

But that is only one half of the stories told here.  The other side of the facility is a brilliant history of the development and growth of the Royal Flying Doctor Service established in 1939.  Another hero another hologram, this time John Flynn tells how he came to found the Service.

I don’t know why I’m surprised Darwin has great museums, but I am, and I’m even more surprised at how much I enjoy them.  Modern and well curated they tell lively stories about the Northern Territory of Australia.

Want to know what it’s like to survive a force 5 cyclone when it hits dead on? People in Darwin found out on Christmas Eve 1974. You can get some idea at the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery. The Cyclone Tracy exhibit has before and after photos of parts of the city to show the devastation, which pretty much did away with the whole town.  Chilling news recordings from the day and night the cyclone hit send shivers down your spine -  “Christmas Eve will be dirty words in Darwin for a long time”.  That probably scared kids more than the cyclone. 

In a pitch black room you can hear a recording of the howling storm that’ll make your bowels turn to water.  It’s not hard to imagine being crouched in the pitch dark while the roof comes off and corrugated iron screeches across concrete and wind roars ceaselessly for hours and hours, not knowing how or when it will end. A bit like living in Trump's America I guess.

Everything in the Northern Territory is designed to kill you. The weather, crocodiles, snakes, spiders, water buffalo, jellyfish - the box jellyfish has a sting that’ll kill you in 2-3 minutes. 

By the time we exit Kakadu National Park, situated SE of Darwin I’ve had enough of crocodiles. The 20,000 square km UNESCO listed site is home to 10,000 and I’ve seen more of them than necessary.  Early explorers, lacking both imagination and zoological expertise, named the three big rivers West Alligator, South Alligator, and East Alligator.  They’re crocs mate.  

Our river trip on the South Alligator  took us up to Cahill's Crossing, a remote river ford that crosses into Arnhem Land.  The tides at the Top End reach highs of 11.8 metres, so there's LOTS of water rushing up stream as the tide comes in, and just as much rushing out when the tide goes out.  This creates the perfect conditions for idiocy and bravado as vehicles cross in unsuitable circumstances and frequently get washed into the croc infested waters.  You'll find a  good summary of the crossing at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ojzUCDR6lg but to see Darwinism at work, google Cahill's Crossing on youtube - but beware of going down a rabbit hole.   

The crowds gather to watch vehicles crossing and crocodiles feeding and hope for a combination of the two 

Up close and personal

But wait. There’s more. That was just the salt water crocs. There’s also freshies that live inland in the rivers and lakes. 

spot the difference - saltie on the left, freshie on the right - they may not look like this when you see them

The stunning Katherine Gorge is, in the Dry, a series of short rivers and gorge pools - in the Wet season it’s one massive raging torrent.  We take a boat trip up through the three lower gorges, walking across the rocks between each and changing to another boat each time. 

Katherine gorge

In the wet season the river runs at a level above the top cave

While we don’t see them, we know crocs are about.  So guess what we do - we go for a swim. The pools between a couple of the river stretches are croc free (they tell us) and so we enjoy a cool break from the 33 degree heat.

I'm wearing my hat and sunglasses so the crocs don't recognise me

Aside from trips up the Gorge, which is very beautiful, and other natural phenomena, Katherine as a town has very little to recommend it.  It's a crossroads for the Great Northern Highway west which are taking, and the road south through the centre to Alice Springs and on to South Australia.  Lots of tourists, trucks and Road Trains - not trains at all but trucks pulling 3 or 4 trailers - passing through, so lots of gas stations and fast food joints.

There's nothing to keep us here and we steel ourselves for the long boring 500 or so km drive to Kununurra and into Western Australia. We've already worked out any game of eye spy fizzles out pretty quickly when there's nothing but road, trees and termite mounds to see.

You might have to squint to read the names but this is our 3,000km road trip from Darwin to Broome, detouring to Kakadu