Purnululu (commonly known as the Bungle Bungles) has a number of great walks some of which are suitable for walking with children.
Access to the walks is a 1.5-2 hour drive from the highway on a rough dirt road. I decided to take the older kids (4yo and 6yo) while Mummy and Little A stayed behind at the Bungle Bungle Caravan Park.
The big kids were really keen to go bush walking and were very excited to be camping in a tent. Our daughter was up and ready to go first thing!
The kids and I drove in early in the day to allow enough time to walk to the impressive Cathedral Gorge and The Domes.
The walk was quite achievable for the kids although the heat of the day got to them as we walked in the creek bed towards Cathedral Gorge. A lovely couple from The Channon (Northern NSW) encouraged and distracted the kids for the final stretch! The cavernous gorge was impressive and the coolness offered by its shade and still pool most welcome. I marvelled at its grandeur while the kids settled into building a dam in the sand by the pool.
On the return walk along the rocky creek bed the kids played in a deep rock hole full of stones (& two dried cane toad carcasses).
The rock hole became the main scene of the evening bedtime story where the kids met a new character, 'Knotty' the Numbat, who led them to a secret door in Cathedral Gorge and a mysterious world underground!
We had erected our tent at the Kurrajong Campground adjacent to some other families. Alas being school holidays they were on a short trip and we wouldn't cross paths again unfortunately!
A few minutes star gazing through the tent ceiling was all the kids could manage before dozing off into a slumber that only a bush walk and a tent can provide.
The morning light streamed through the tent walls and soon I had two very energetic kids jumping on me! After a breakfast of muesli with warm milk and banana, school journal writing for B, and a play with several kids who gathered at our camp, we set course for Echidna Chasm.
The walk through the stony creek bed up towards Echidna Chasm was a little challenging for little feet although they've conquered far worse of course. A couple of hundred metres into this first walk of the day P was convinced that she was teetering on the edge of exhaustion but they soon thought up some games and before we entered the cool, dark labyrinth P had collected four long sticks to carry on her merry way! We weaved our way through the mighty fracture, two sheer rock walls towering either side above us and although P's sticks frequently jammed between the narrow sides of the gorge and despite my gentle persuasions that we could always pick them up on our way back out she insisted that she really must continue to persevere to the very end, around boulders, past other walkers, up the ladders. Upon reaching the final cavern and while B attempted to scale the sheer rock walls, P dropped her bundle of sticks as though it were common house dirt and began inventing another game.
We shared a couple of oranges before evacuating ourselves from the tortuous intestines of the Echidna. It was a magnificent finale to our Purnululu adventures and although I had no idea what to expect and didn't plan it that way I feel it was a wise decision to do the southern end of the park first and leaving the impressive Echidna as our last stop.
We didn't muck around getting on our way back to 'our roaming home'. We know very well where the best cook, cooking and catering is in this vast brown land and we were famished!!
Although it didn't stop us taking a break from the rough 50km road about half way for a cup of tea and a spot of cow shit cricket! Oh and two separate trips off piste to dig a hole for number twos that didn't exist five minutes before when I had asked!!!!
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