Billiluna to Bungle Bungles
23/05/2015
The plan for this leg was to travel to a bush camp near the Bungle Bungles. This was a short leg so we thought we’d have slow start with a cooked breakfast on the previous night’s camp fire. We didn’t quite make it to the Bungle Bungles though…
Kris and I are late starters but the rest of the crew are early risers however, this particular morning we were up early with the rest of the crew. The Old Man had his binoculars out and was looking around the Lagoon’s fringe. There was quite a bit of life and the Brolga’s were still close by dancing around each other, presumably involved with some type of courtship. The lagoon is equipped with a drop toilet and adjacent there was a sign telling us a little about the local story. There is a ritual the locals will perform that will protect you if you want to swim in the lagoon but it will not protect you from the spirit brother who manifest as a strong wind when they are angry. So, if a Willy-Willy blows over the lagoon then you are advised to get out. There’s also two gum trees that are on opposite sides of the lagoon and the locals ask that visitors not go near them.
We packed up and left beautiful stretch lagoon. We headed into Billiluna for fuel and as we drew close we could see a little bit of activity in the town. We drew closer to the store and could see that it was a bustling little centre. To get fuel, which for us was Opel petrol, we had to go into the store and buy a fuel card. Fuel and supplies were expensive here, as you’d expect in a remote community but everyone was friendly.
We got underway and were soon of the Tanami Track. We were all pretty happy to get off the track and onto some smoother travelling.
We stopped at Halls Creek for a lunch break. I was in Halls Creek in 2003 with the Old Man and back then the place was a bit like a war zone. It was a pleasant surprise to see Halls Creek in such good nick. It is quite a pretty place now. An old woman asked Tania where we were heading and she told her Kalumburu. The old lady found this very amusing and referred to the old war plane in the dump up there but we are not sure why that was amusing.
After lunch, we headed to the Bungle Bungles. We didn’t have any ‘intel’ on the road in and when we started down the windy track we found it to be pretty rough. As the road was windy, we couldn’t get to a speed where we would skip over the corrugations and some of the track was rough due exposed rock. We had a side-of-the-road conference and chose to go back to the caravan park to stay the night. We could then visit the Bungle Bungles the next day. I think we’d had enough of getting shaken around but staying at the park went against the grain a little as we were looking forward to the bush camp. Ultimately, it would add an extra day to the trip but you get that!
