Purnululu National Park Archives -

20th – 23rd June, 2025

The famous beehive domes of the Bungle Bungle Range are found in the East Kimberley in the UNESCO World Heritage listed Purnululu National Park. There’s some conjecture as to where the name Bungle Bungle came from, but consensus seems to be a derivative of the term “bundle bundle” referring to a local grass that grows in clumps. Purnululu is the local indigenous term for sandhills.

Friday

The road into Purnululu is infamous for its difficulty. A sign at the start warns that it’s suitable only for high-clearance 4-wheel drives. It is a 53 km (33 mile) drive to the Ranger Station, and the sign advises allowing 2 to 3 hours. We both agreed it was a pretty bad road with relentless corrugations and many water crossings — one of them quite deep and rocky requiring careful route-picking. Despite that, we made it in about 1.5 hours, and counted ourselves lucky.

After setting up camp at Kurrajong campground ready to do the northern hikes in the Park tomorrow, we drove back to Kungkalanayi, the indigenous term for ‘lookout’, and watched the sun set over the Bungle Bungle Range.

Steve, enjoying the sunset as he sits on his rock amongst the spinifex.

Saturday

Today’s goal is to complete all the hikes in the northern section of the park.
First is the 4.4km Grade 3 hike to Homestead Valley.

A lovely hike amongst the livistona palms, acacias and grevillias.

This is our first experience walking amongst the amazing rock formations of the Bungle Bungle Range.

The path followed a dry, stony creek bed to emerge at the top of a valley.

Echidna Chasm, our next hike, is best viewed around the middle of the day when the sun is overhead lighting up the amazing chasm walls.

The cleft is very narrow – the walls are conglomerate rock.

The sunshine has now entered the main part of the chasm.

For our final hike today we’ll do the Grade 4, 4.4km Mini Palms Trail. This hike followed the escarpment before steep slopes, narrow edges and large boulders to climb under, over or squeeze between brought us to two viewing platforms.

Sunday

We moved camp this morning to Walardi, where we’ll be able to more easily access the southern hikes. This is where we first see the striped beehive domes that make Purnululu famous – and they’re every bit as incredible as we’d hoped. These ancient formations began taking shape over 350 million years ago, when rivers laid down layers of sandstone and conglomerate. Over the ages, wind, rain, and erosion sculpted them into the striking shapes we see today. The distinctive orange and dark grey bands come from differences in mineral content and moisture-loving bacteria, giving the domes their beautiful, banded beehive look.

All the hikes here start from the Piccaninny Trailhead and follow the course of Piccaninny Creek. We decided to head up the creek to Whipsnake Gorge, then explore the side tracks on our way back, covering a total of 13km. Although the creek wasn’t flowing, it held large, still pools that were sometimes tricky to skirt around. The trail itself was mostly soft sand, with stretches of river stones underfoot, and at one point, an extraordinary section of solid rock broken longitudinally with narrow, parallel clefts — the result of centuries of weathering. It made for a surprisingly varied and fascinating walk.

The trail followed the creek as it wound its way past those amazing domes.

This section of the riverbed surprised me, having never seen granite laid down and weathered like this.

A view along one of the clefts in the granite river bed.

A natural window eroded through one of the domes perfectly frames scenic views of the Bungle Bungle Range.

Cathedral Gorge is a breathtaking natural amphitheatre, carved from red rock over millions of years by the persistent force of water. During the wet season, a waterfall spills from the gorge’s roof into a now tranquil pool at its heart. This vast, circular cavern is famed for its remarkable acoustics. We were privileged to experience it as the haunting tones of a didgeridoo, played by an Indigenous musician, echoed through the ancient walls.

Monday

We’re leaving Purnululu today but not before we experience this amazing place from the air. Would you like to see my hundreds of photos – no, really. Well here’s just a few. Stills don’t do the flight or the National Park justice. On Tracks and Horizons YouTube channel you’ll find a video which brings it to life.

No doors to hold us in, but no doors to impede the view either. Just Steve and I and our pilot on our flight.

The variety of different land formations stunned us. What we see from the ground is such a small fraction of the Park.

Different formations again. And look at all those gorges – we only walked into a few gorges and were blown away by the vistas, rock formations, pools, etc. There must be hundreds more that are equally amazing.

The beehive domes – fading off into the distance.

Completing our land exploration of the Kimberley here was an awe-inspiring finale to an epic Outback journey.