Bungle Bungle Offroad Rumble

Mum was a human measurement of sketchy dirt roads when I was a kid. The tougher the terrain, the tighter Mum’s fist would grip around her seatbelt. If she had her eyes shut and two hands clenching the belt — oar-in-a-sinking-canoe-on-the-Daintree style — you knew it was bad.

That is the enduring image I have of the road into the Bungle Bungles, circa 1988, a year after the area was declared a national park. We’d unhitched the family caravan in Kununurra and hit the dirt with a tent, the view through the windscreen of our Ford F100 jolting from a panorama of bulldust to sky with each stomach-lurching dip. Back then, it was unthinkable to drive a caravan into the national park. I remember Dad scoffing at a bloke attempting the track in a low-clearance Subaru, but today, single-axle offroad trailers are permitted.

A WORTHY DETOUR

Purnululu National Park, the Indigenous name by which the Bungles are now known, is a striking UNESCO