Kununurra to Bungle Bungle Caravan Park

Kununurra – 19 July 2012

This morning we headed off for our day trip along the famous Gibb River Road, albeit only as far as El Questro Station. Our first stop was Zebedee Springs, a beautiful palm fringed thermal spring of between 28 to 32C. Sue and I soaked in the warmth for about an hour while the girls honed their dam building skills at the end of one of the pools. They successfully raised the water level by an inch or two. 

The start of the Gibb River Road, western end

Dam builders at work - Zebedee Springs

The girls enjoying a warm shower at Zebedee

Another shot of that warm shower

We left just on midday, when the station owners close the springs to the general public and make them available only to resort tour groups. We then drove the short run to El Questro Station, crossing the Pentecost River in the process. They’d done up the station a bit since our first visit 18 years ago, and now had nice shady, grassed areas with picnic tables and a full blown café for the punters. I had my lunch here while the girls had an icecream and then we hit the road again for Emma Gorge.
We began our walk from a very crowded car park, expecting to share the gorge with the multitudes. Luckily we passed many of them leaving as we walked in. It was a fairly challenging 1.6km to the end of the gorge, where we found a beautiful waterfall and large pool that beckoned us for a swim. That was until we put our feet in it, only to find it was about 10C. We braved it anyway and found it to be very invigorating (Sue said I couldn’t add any rude adjectives here). We swam to the far side of the pool, to beneath the waterfall, and then followed the wall back to a cave, near where we had entered. We all noticed the water was a fraction warmer here and continued further back along the wall, where we found a thermal spring entering the pool. The water would have been about 25C here and we all huddled in to thaw.

I climbed higher up the rocks where I could hear more water running in and found a deeper private pool in behind a large boulder. The only trouble was it was about 1 inch narrower than my butt, so I had to squeeze in with a bit of a sideways twist. After the others joined me, with their narrower butts, I decided to remove myself, only to find I was stuck. With a bit of a wiggle and a grunt I finally managed to free myself. I was real worried at one stage that I would miss happy hour.

Negotiating the rocks before a very cool swim in the Emma Gorge pool

We checked out the shop back at the car park, got changed into some dry clothes and made the run back to Kununurra. I had planned to load the boat back on the roof before dinner, but we again changed our plans and decided to have another day at Kununurra to catch up on a few things before leaving for the Bungle Bungle.

Kununurra – 20 July 2012

We began the day with a trip into the shops to stock the shelves before we left the next day. The car wash was busy when we got back so I decided to have a crack at setting up the new satellite dish. With the help of an instruction book and the neighbours, we managed to get it all running in time for the live rugby game that afternoon.

Sue and the girls enjoyed the midday movie, before Sue took them up for a swim. I loaded the tinnie back on the roof, packed up a few other things and then had happy hour. Never did get time to wash that car.
Sue knocked up a cracking roast lamb dinner, which we all devoured with gusto.

Bungle Bungle Caravan Park – 21 July 2012

Today we left Kununurra at 9.00am and stopped for fuel at Warmun ( formerly Turkey Creek), paying the princely sum of $1.41 per litre for autogas. We turned off the highway 52km south and made the 1km run on dirt to the caravan park. We had booked an unpowered site for 2 nights, but upon arrival found there had been a cancellation, so we scored the last powered site.
After lunch I took the tinnie off the roof and the outboard off the back, before dropping the tyre pressures on the cruiser in preparation for the run into the Bungle Bungle the next day. I also set up the sat dish, before kicking back for happy hour.

Georgia and Kelsey spent their afternoon making poos out of the local dirt with some water from the tap. They were also rapt when a few bulls came walking through the caravan park sites. Their favourite was Hercules, apparently a regular visitor, who they followed around for quite a while, squealing and running away whenever he approached them.

Cordon Bleu chefs with a fresh batch of poos . . . .

After a feed of satay chicken for dinner, we headed over to the communal camp fire and chatted for an hour or so with some fellow travellers from Melbourne. They were about to start their journey home across the Tanami with camper trailers.

With the kids in bed, Sue and I did some work on the blog, before hitting the sack ourselves, ready for an early start the next day.