Today is one that will be pretty
hard to beat!
We were up early and had everything packed up in the van nice and
early before we headed to the local airport. As part of our ‘are we there yet’
tour of Australia we had to not only visit the Bungle Bungles but we had to fly
over it in a helicopter with no doors! Originally we were going to do it
yesterday afternoon but we decided to delay it in the hope of the cloud cover
clearing....and it was as gamble that paid off, there was not a cloud in the
sky!
The boys were pretty excited, as
were both De and I, about the chance of not only going for a flight in a
helicopter but doing it over the Bungles! The staff were really good and gave
us the chance to have a look at one of the copters before we flew with the boys
sitting in the drivers seat pretending to be pilots.
When it came to our turn
we were marshalled out to the copter that had just returned and strapped in. I
was in the front with De behind the pilot and the boys were strapped into the
same seat behind me (I was really happy about that as we only had to pay for 1
person as together they weighed less than 77kgs – yeah) The pilot wrote a few
numbers on a scrap of paper and then we were off. The next 18 minutes felt like
25 seconds as we went to the centre of the rock, flying over some of its
central gorges and then back over the top of the bee hive domes doing a couple
of S turns as he went. Jim, was a great host and provided an interesting
commentary as we went. In order to capture the ‘moment’ I had my ‘go pro’
strapped to my head and madly clicked away with the camera while De had the
video camera going.
Once it was over we had to peel
De’s hands of the handle as her nails were embedded into the steel bar! While
it wasn’t terrifying cruising a thousand feet in the air with nothing but a car
seat belt to stop you plummeting to your death can be a bit scary!
We didn’t have much time to stop
and reflect on our trip as we were on our second mission of the day..to get to
Echidna Gorge by 11:30! We flew back to the campground, hooked Gator on, roared
to the information centre and unhooked and unburdened again I channelled Mika
Hakinen as we drove the 30 kms to the gorge. My knee was still a bit gummy but
I wasn’t going to let it slow me down as we arrived at the gorge and I rock
hopped the 1km to the entrance. Why the hurry I hear you ask? Echidna Gorge is
an amazing feature where you walk along a gap 1 or 2m wide into the rock. Each
side of you are sheer walls 75, 100m or higher that literally go straight up!
We walked deeper and deeper into this crevasse, taking a few shots as I went. I
wasn’t 100% happy and I thought I had missed the opportunity when Jack pointed
out that it looked pretty good looking the other way....and there it was!
At a certain point during the day
the sun is in just the right position to flood the crevasse right to the
bottom, which makes a pretty cool pic. I really wish I knew how to operate my
camera better as, while I am pretty happy with the pic I took, know it would
have been better if I had more knowledge! Happy that had captured my ‘shot’
explored further and further eventually pulling up some 3 – 400m into the rock!
Somehow I had pictures of Indiana Jones and walls closing in on me shoot
through my head as we meandered back down the path.
Happy with our mass of experiences
before lunch we calmly drove the 30kms back to the information centre where we
hooked up Gator and drove the 52kms back to the park gate. The big benefit was
that the grader had been working and more than half of the creek crossings now
resembled a slowly sloping U rather than V, knocking more than half an hour of
our journey for the 52kms stretch!
The rest of the afternoon was
spent driving...something we are pretty good at doing. We eventually pulled up
at a rest area at it seemed like the hoard of gray nomads had caught up with
us. We had heard that they all left on Mother’s day and it must have taken them
a week to get here as there were at least 25 other vans crammed in. I whipped
up a quick dinner and the boys hit the sack after a massive day. De and I sat
in the darkness and once the %^*^$( across from us turned his generator off we
enjoyed the silence looking up to the stars!
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