THE BUNGLE BUNGLES

PAMELA'S ACCOUNT OF HER TWO DAYS AT THE BUNGLE BUNGLE. 

Thursday August 24th, Margaret and Karen dropped and ran from the airport for my flight to Kununurra.  Great window seat on the window side with a huge view of the ocean and the outgoing tide.  A red brown fringe to the creeks and swamps of the Northern Territory and WA. No sign of any life from 30,000 feet.  Just and expanse of country.  Channels of brown with green fringes.  The very occasional bush track, snakes from no where to nothing.  We bank of Kununurra irrigation fields, rectangular, dull green salt bush blocks, bright green melon patches and mango trees in regimented rows.  The Ord River breaks into channels of dirty water. 

The town is bigger than I expected.  My room at the back of the Kununurra Hotel is away from the karaoke noises. I had a pleasant walk in the 30 degree heat in the town.  There were groups of black faces sitting in shaded areas of parklands - quiet and shy - The sign outside the arcade to Coles says 'No humbugging'.  The aboriginal gallery is large with some colourful works.  Others, just so.  The modern gallery has a photo exhibition .  It's further down the hot road. A dinner at the pub .  Friday the 25th.  Picked up out front in the shade of a huge bottle tree, 8.15 to the airport.  Four smallish planes take groups of tourists to the Bungle Bungle Mountain.  I am with 12 people.  I am chosen to sit with the pilot on the amazing flight over lake Argyle.  Cattle stations that boarded on the Tanna Myr  Desert. Over other ranges and onto the ranges that stand out.  Land at the gravel airstrip and onto a 4 x 4 bus.  The ranger Jen, an older woman and a young aboriginal guy.  We drove over a corrugated track into the mountains.  

37 degrees, and I walked for two hours.  In an amazing part of my country.  A dream filled.  Made it back to the 4 x 4, buggered.  Fly back as  co-pilot to Kununurra.  Slept well.