Day 106 – 2nd September – Bungle Bungles

We were not quite finished with the northern end of the national park.  Our first hike of the day took us into the Mini Palm Gorge.  Yep, you guessed it, it’s a stroll along a gorge that is full of palm trees…

At the mouth of the gorge were a bunch of boulders that needed to be traversed… us normal people ducked and weaved our way between the boulders, whereas my two mountain goats took the opportunity to climb over them…  

There was a nice platform leading into the final section of the gorge.  It was a pretty spot surrounded by palm trees… 

Resting at the end… 

Some trees manage to survive on the cliff faces… the palm trees tend to find the cracks where water seeps out and others send out roots to hang on for dear life…

Our hike into Mini Palm Gorge done, we jumped in the car and headed to the southern end of the national park.  This is the spot that the Bungle Bungles are famous for… those beehive domes with their distinctive stripes…  Here’s a fun fact…. the orange stripes are caused by the oxidisation of iron in the sandstone (which is white-ish in colour underneath that orange) and the grey stripes are caused by cyanobacteria (blue-green algae).  

We wondered around the domes for a bit then ended up in Cathedral Gorge.  Cathedral Gorge ends in a large amphitheatre where there is a pool of water which has clearly come from water flowing into the cavern from above, but at this time of the year it was a bit on the manky side…

I had all three lined up for a photo when one of them spotted a bird, no, a plane, no it’s … OK… it was just a bird… a white-quilled rock-pigeon to be precise… 16630

More trekking along a dry creek bed to find a lookout 

Here’s the view from the lookout.  The dry creek bed winding through the photo is the Picaninny Creek.  Can you imagine this view when there is actually water flowing through the creek? 

I had high expectations going into the Bungle Bungles… mixed with a little cynicism…  how special can a bunch of rocks be?  You know what?  It was pretty awesome… even the kids appreciated the funky domes.  That’s another tick of approval from the BK Family…