Rumble in the Bungles
Desert romance ... hikes in the unique mountain range inspire a sense of awe.
Carol West scores an aerial view o Western Australia’s striking and ancient massif.
Kununurra has always had the romantic feel of a frontier town. It’s no surprise itwas chosen as a backdrop to Nicole Kidman’s on-screen love affair with Hugh Jackman in Baz Luhrmann’s epic film Australia.
Celluloid fame aside, this east Kimberley out post stands at the crossroads of some of Australia’s biggest travel experiences and one of the bestways to appreciate the grandeur of this ancient region is by air. At 6.15am the sun is a piercing orb in a clear Kimberley sky as we take the Slingair Cessna 208 Grand Caravan flight from Kununurra to Bellburn. Rivers and streams thread through a sparse khaki landscape where four stations farm 2 million hectares.
The man-made inland sea of Lake Argyle looms into view, 1000 square kilometres of turquoise water teeming with freshwater crocodiles.
At its southern end we have a bird’seye view of the world’s biggest open-cut diamond mine, the Argyle. Crossing thewell-defined ridges of the Osborne Ranges, our first glimpse of the Bungle Bungle Range extends to the horizon. The prehistoric formation was discovered by chance in 1983 when a Perth film crewflew over it on their day off, and the film they shot became an internationally screened documentary that opened the tourism door to a mass if that extends formore than 25 kilometres.
As we fly in toBellburn’s tiny airstrip in Purnululu National Park, theprofusionofwild flowers, savannawood lands and spinifex grasslands add an unexpected softness.Afinemist of dust accompanies us on the 90-minute drive to our camp site.
"The Bungles are likeAyersRock was 40 years ago," our host Trevor says as we set out fromour tent cabin for the day’s exploration. Remote and inaccessible, they still managed to attract 40,000 visitors last year. Perhaps it's becausemost of the deep gorges laced with Liviston a palms, soaring plateaus and waterholes will never be explored that there’s an unmistakably spiritual quality to this ancient site.
More than 20 million years of water, wind and sands off the Tanami Desert have sculpted the Bungle Bungle Range's beehive domes. Covering about 15 per cent of the park, their distinctive orange and- black tiger stripes – created by iron oxide and algae – form a protective skin over voluptuously curved forms. Once the soft white sand stone core is exposed, however, erosion occurs rapidly.
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