Sunday 14 May – to Kununurra

Mothers Day today, but it was business as usual. Leaving promptly for another day of hiking and travelling.

Leaving our APT camp (we were glamping, not camping) we drove to take the Echidna Chasm walk; so named from an aboriginal tale of an echidna and a galah who argued and the galah pulled out the echidna’s quills which are now represented by the listonia palms growing at the entrance to the chasm. These palms are indigenous to the area and do in fact grow prolifically in The Kimberley, but there is a high concentration in this gorge.

The walk was challenging. Some on the tour were unprepared for such conditions, but did the walk anyway. As a result the group was held up, once again.

It will be interesting to see how things pan out as apparently the walks ahead of us are more challenging again.

I have marked in green where we were yesterday, in the south of the park, and today in the north

Looking north from Osmond Lookout

Start of the walk up Echidna Chasm

Similar in geological structure to Cathedral Gorge, this is the view of the sky from a canyon deep within this narrow gorge 

Some challenges on this walk

End of the line - nowhere else to go but back the way we came

Cattle free range in this part of the world, but because it is time for muster they are often found in groups

A challenging road surface to get in and out of the park

We headed out of the park with a stop for lunch at the information centre. Then it was on to Kununurra – 300+ kms – where we will stay for another couple of nights. Because our walk had taken so long we arrived only about half an hour before we were due for dinner.