Again we were woken at false dawn by the same species of bird as at Wolfe Creek.  We got up about half an hour before sunrise to greet another beautiful morning.  We went to Echidna Chasm first up, the most northerly track in the Bungle Bungle Ranges.  The Bungles close up are amazing, a massive conglomerate of large washed river stone in a sediment of sand, all with a deep orange reddish colour.  The walk into Echidna Chasm is in a dry creek bed, full of rounded river stones.  The massive walls close in as the chasm gets narrower & narrower then you finally end up in a very large amphitheatre type environment, with towering stone walls all around, reaching hundreds of metres up. The photos don’t even begin to come close to capturing the beauty & the feeling of this amazing place.  The walk back is just as beautiful, seeing it all from a different perspective.  We saw a colony of tiny bats flitting about overhead inside the dark chasm as they jockeyed for roosting space.

Next stop was the Mini Palms Track, around 5km return into another magnificent gorge.  This track had a lot more walking over a dry creek bed before we finally reached the entrance to another amazing chasm, this one was partially blocked in lots of places by massive boulders that had fallen from the walls.  We had to crawl underneath, squeeze between & clamber over these giant rocks to reach a magnificent view of the start of the creek & all along lots of palm trees, again another even larger amphitheatre with a long way down as the viewing platform was built on top of a massive fallen boulder.  The birdlife and plant life is very diverse & interesting.  The walk back out was again very interesting with the different views, although the day was starting to heat up as it was getting close to midday, so a bit of sweating & lots of drinks of water. The wonder & beauty of those enormous rocks & the terrible drive here was forgotten.

We headed back to our campsite at Kurrajong, hooked up the vans & drove back to the visitor’s centre to register & pay for our stay in the park before going to our next camp site at Walardi where we plan to stay for two nights.  Our washing certainly got a good shake & a good breeze to dry them. An early start to dinner as we were all hungry after our long walks & we only had a very simple light lunch.  John & Tereza again whipped up a superb lamb meal washed down with some more red.