From Echidna Chasm we drove the short distance to visit Mini Palms. This is a 4.5km walk into a gorge where the Livistona palm has its own nursery of juvenile palms.
The walk in is along the creek bed, over river stones and has some rather tights passages through huge boulders that have fallen from the gorge sides. We called it the fatty boomba test. Luckily I passed.

The walk continues up the creek bed over river stones – perfect for twisting an ankle. Of course, the ranger has warning signs of the many, endless risks of walking up the gorge. Nonetheless, it was a great walk.

Ferg and Harry took these very picturesque photos of the many Livistona palms below.

It’s been a long day, and as we emerged from the gorge, the sun was setting on the red walls that towered above us. This time we were close up to the colour, and it lit up our faces as we stared at the evening show.

What a day! Our total for walks came up to 19.5km and as it was nearly all flat walking, my knees coped rather well. Just don’t ask me to walk up, and then down, for 19.5km!
We all loved this place. We have been lucky to make the trip here, and maybe we’ll get back one day to feel the magic again.

No other way to describe Echidna Chasm at the north end of the Bungle Bungle National Park. These were John’s words, and he was spot on.
Echidna Chasm is one of the “must do” walks here, and with very good reason. You walk up the creek bed and as the gorge closes in, the walls get closer together – only an arm’s width apart – and the sky nearly disappears. The gap at the top is only just a gap, and the walls are so, so high. The chasm seems endless! Standley Chasm near Alice Springs doesn’t even rate, compared to this. We never stopped saying how amazing it was all the way in and all the way out.

The boys had fun as the walls got closer together. And these photos don’t need to be rotated!

This last photo is taken at the end of the chasm, after making a right angle turn and winding along for 200m, you end up at a dead end, just past this chock stone.

Echidna Chasm was an absolute highlight of the Bungle Bungle visit.

Access to Purnululu is restricted and we are only allowed into 4% of the whole National Park for cultural reasons, so a helicopter flight is a great way to see more (although there are some areas we are not even allowed to fly over).
We took a 30 minute flight, with John and Harry (below) in one chopper and Ferg and me in the other.

The views were incredible, and showed us that the Bungle Bungle Range isn’t just about the domes. There are some serious gorges, chasms and ranges to see in the north, and you can even see to the Tanami Desert. In another 20 million years, the domes will have eroded away in the wind to look like the desert in the distance.
Click through the gallery of photos we took from the air to get an idea of how amazing it is.

Fergus summed up the chopper ride for all of us: “Wow, that was so awesome!” – repeated over and over!

Purnululu, or Bungle Bungle, is a place I have longed to see for many years, so the closer we got, the more excited I was. And it hasn’t disappointed. This is a really special experience.

Being surrounded by these unique banded domes – some large, some small – with towering red cliffs, endless gorges and chasms, massive dry river beds, and views you’ll see nowhere else in the world leaves you gasping at the surreal landscape.
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We headed south on the Great Northern Highway (someone has to go south) to Purnululu (the new name for the Bungle Bungle Range). It’s about 250km on the bitumen, through Warmun (the new name for Turkey Creek) and then 53 bone rattling, corrugated kilometres across some private property and then into the National Park. This last 53km takes almost 2 hours, and on top of the corrugations you also get a seriously winding road (quality car sickness trigger) and several creek crossings. No caravans are allowed in, so this reduces the numbers a bit. The enterprising owners of the station through which the road passes have established a caravan park at the start of the dirt road, so the Nomads can still drop the van (for a fee) and do a day trip, or leave the van for a few days (for a fee) and camp in a tent at the Bungles. Not too many Nomads are tent campers though! There is also the pleasant surprise of a coffee van, which is owned by (no surprises here) the station/caravan park owners. I happily added to the season’s profits as we left – it soothed my corrugated brain.
Anyway, we had arrived at the campground at Purnululu in time to wander up the hill for this fantastic sunset. This is the western side of the range, and the surrounding area is flanked by spinifex covered slopes.