Many would say that many Aussie choose to travel overseas more than in Australia. Well that isn’t the case for me. It may sound a little odd for a 27 year old to have a bucket list of things she wants to do before she is thirty but on my list I had that I wanted to travel to every state in Australia.
My last two states I hadn’t been to were Western Australia and Northern Territory. So, in 2016 I decided to give my mum and I a well-deserved holiday. Somewhere we had never been and always wanted to see in Australia were the Bungle Bungles. The bungle Bungles are these natural landforms, which are a part of the Purnululu National park that is situated in the Kimberleys.
The Kimberleys stretches out to 423,517 square metres and has a vast amount of ranges, gorges and isolated coastline in the top part of Western Australia. At first I was going to hire a campervan to drive me and my mum around but to cause less headache for us I found a great 2 week tour with that wasn’t over budget as tours to the Kimberleys can be quite expensive.
Our tour started in Broome, North Western Australia, which is known for it’s pearl farms and has one of the oldest cinemas in Australia. Our first two stops at the beginning we went to Windjana Gorge and Manning Gorge. The night was camped out at Manning Gorge it was pouring down rain to the point that we ended up stuck in the campsite for about over 5 days as the famous Gibbs road that stretches about 660kms un paved got washed out and too dangerous to drive along. Some how for the days that we were stuck in the campsite we found a fair few things to keeps ourselves entertained.
We walked to the waterfall what was about an hour and half walk and a few of us decided to come back down the river stream. I wouldn’t recommend doing it alone just depending on the tied because it can be dangerous. We got to see some aboriginal artwork painted on the rocks surrounding Manning Gorge, did some other hikes and swimming as well as walking down to the small convenience store about 7 kms away to get a little bit of internet connection to contact my dad and brother to let them know that we were safe. Not having Internet or phone connection was good just because you got to know the people on your tour better and share many stories. Even one of the guys from our tour group did some yoga in the evening.
The day we got the all clear that we could get back onto the road our group were very excited. We did get the bad news that since we were stuck for so long we would have to miss a couple of our stops one being The Bungles Bungles, which was devastating new since it was going to be the highlight of the trip.
We continued to travel on to El Questo, Lake Argle and into the Northern Territory up to Katherine and our final destination the capital of the NT Darwin. Throughout the trip there was a fair bit of hiking and climbing over large rock surround by waterfalls so if you’re the adventurous type and love the outdoors I would highly recommend this trip. I found a great physical and mental challenge though if I knew earlier how much climbing we did in our pit stops I would have chosen a different option for my mum. I have to say some of the best camp food I’ve ever had in my life was on this trip. You would be amazed the different types of dishes such as roasts or cakes your can create in just a simple campfire.
One of the amazing parts about travelling is meeting new people and creating some great friendships. After the tour a few of the people I met were coming down to Melbourne so I got to show them around. I’m really looking forward to new years because I’ll be spending it in Vienna with a couple of the girls from the trip. Even though we missed the Bungle Bungles I have a good feeling I will get to visit them some day soon.
