My blood was half way to boiling point @ Purnululu National Park

They call it Purnululu National Park, more like Purgatory National Park!

After driving all night from Litchfield National Park including 53km of unsealed road, it's fair to say when we arrived at Purnululu National Park or the Bungle Bungles, we were pretty tired. At approx 10am it was already high thirties and the direct sun burnt us in an instant. We headed straight to the visitor center, gathered information, sought some shade, had breakfast, deflated the tyres and set foot for the Domes and Cathedral Gorge.

It was hot!

It was horrible!

It was insane to walk around the Domes in that heat!

We took about 7L of water with us for a 4km walk. Doesn't sound that far does it? It shouldn't have felt as long as it did. 2km there, 2 km back, in thick sand, mostly direct sunlight and extreme temperatures. We took the extra 400m walk between the Domes which was magestic however not worth the time or effort as we quickly learnt you see them from the Cathedral Gorge walk anyway.

We arrived at a T-intersection and asked a man coming the other way how much longer until we reached Cathedral Gorge. He said we were only about a third of the way. A third of the way? We were boiling!! We were ready to go! Little did we know if we took an extra couple of steps in the direction the man was going, we would see the car park! Did he think we were red beetroots from just walking from our car? Shame!

Princess looked like a beetroot and I'm sure I looked no different. I had become insensitive to her walk-whinging by this stage, as it had accompanied us on every walk. On this occasion, her whinging turned into blood curdling screams with hands being thrown up in the air and planting her feet in the ground. We sat down, found a sliver of shade, had a drink, drenched her hat, tshirt, neck and face with my $1 spray bottle from Coles, an added luxury I learnt I could not live without, and watched the 60, 70 and 80 year olds stride with confidence past us back to the tour bus. I turned to Princess and said, if they can do it, so can we!

Princess was ruining the serenity of the area. The Domes demanded quiet, with most people whispering, yet Princess was whimpering and her echoes bounced between the orange and black 300m sandstone pillars. As we reached Cathedral Gorge, a huge natural amphitheatre, even Princess understood  the natural laws to keep quiet. The hellish walk had now seemed worth it, and the smell of the algae ridden pool didn't matter as the cool sandstone boulders crushed any minor problems from my mind.

I regretted not taking some lunch with us, it would have been a beautiful spot. I waited until Princess' face turned from crimson red to a lighter shade of pink and broke the news that we had to walk back.

Princess whispered, "I'll just wait here until you get the car."

I replied, "I'm sorry, what do you mean?"

Princess clarified, "I don't want to walk back, you just go, leave me here, and get the car and come and get me"

I laughed at her logical point of view and broke the news that the car couldn't get there. "How is the car going to climb up the ladder?"

The whimpering started again. This time in Cathedral Gorge which amplified her acoustics, echoing her whimpers around, and around, and around again, until it sounded like a choir of whimpering girls! I'm ashamed to say most people left the Cathedral at that point.

I sprayed her face, gave her another drink, and told her we were going to play a game. The sun was going to be the hunter therefore we needed to get out of the sun as quickly as possible and find shade. If we stand in the shade, the hunter can't get us. The walk back was surprisingly much quicker than the walk there. Every sliver of shade we stopped, I sprayed everyone with water and we all had a drink!

We got back to the car in one piece and melted our hands lifting the solar panels off the windscreen. Zooper Doopers all round cured everyone's woes and we were off to 5 star luxury in Broome.

This outback desert business was not for me! I needed a beach, air conditioning and a normal iced coffee!

Watch a slideshow of photos taken in the area by clicking below:

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