Bruce and Terri Connell guide the Getaway team into Purnululu National Park
“We began exploring from the World Heritage-listed Purnululu 25 years ago. 25 years on and our family is still discovering new and amazing spots. And that’s the best part – our family has been able to share in, and continue the adventure, and we’ve been able to give others a taste of the place we call home”. Bruce Connell
Purnululu National Park. Image by Sean Scott.
When Getaway travelled to the East Kimberley to film in the spectacular Bungle Bungles with presenter Ben Dark, we were called upon to guide them to the best spots. We (Bruce and Terri) took Ben and the production team into Purnululu, sharing our local knowledge and helping the crew navigate this remote and extraordinary corner of the Kimberley.
And extraordinary is certainly the right word.
The Bungle Bungles are unlike almost anywhere else in Australia. Their distinctive beehive-shaped domes rise from the surrounding savannah in great clusters of orange and black sandstone. The formations are made from Devonian-age quartz sandstone that was deposited when the area was part of an ancient sedimentary basin. Over the years, water, wind and weathering have carved the sandstone into the spectacular towers and gorges we see today.
For a television crew, it was an incredible backdrop.
Behind the scenes with Getaway
Getting into the Bungle Bungles has always been part of the adventure. Purnululu is vast – the national park covers almost 240,000 hectares, while the Bungle Bungle Range itself stretches across about 45,000 hectares. The northern and southern ends of the park are separated by around 47 kilometres, and even today the drive between them takes about 80 minutes.
When guiding the Getaway crew into this country, having people who understad the area is invaluable. There are locations that are to find, tracks to navigate and, of course, the challenge of getting the right shots. The Bungle Bungles are particularly spectacular on camera because the landscape changes dramatically with the light.
The sandstone domes can shift in colour throughout the day, while the narrow gorges create completely different scenes from the open landscape of the range.
UNESCO describes the formations as undergoing remarkable daily and seasonal changes in appearance, including dramatic colour changes after rain and as the sun moves across the domes.
Why are the Bungle Bungles striped?
One of the things that makes the Bungle Bungles instantly recognisable is their orange-and-black banding. It looks almost as though someone has painted stripes across the domes, but the dark bands have a fascinating natural explanation. They are formed by cyanobacteria; tiny photosynthetic organisms that grow across the sandstone where conditions are moist enough. The biological crusts help stabilise and protect the fragile sandstone beneath them.
The result is one of the Kimberley’s most extraordinary natural patterns – thousands of rounded sandstone domes, each marked with horizontal bands.
A landscape the world eventually discovered
It’s easy now to think of the Bungle Bungles as one of Australia’s best-known natural landmarks. But that wasn’t always the case.
Until the early 1980s, knowledge of the Bungle Bungles was largely confined to Traditional Owners and a small number of local pastoralists, stockmen and geologists. A television documentary in 1983 brought the landscape to national attention, helping to spark greater interest in the area. Purnululu was subsequently declared a national park in 1987.
That makes the Getaway visit part of a longer story of television helping Australians discover the extraordinary landscapes of the Kimberley.
By the time we guided Ben Dark and the Getaway crew through the Bungle Bungles, the landscape had become famous – but it’s still a remote and adventurous place to visit.
From television set to World Heritage
The Bungle Bungles’ international significance was formally recognised in 2003, when Purnululu National Park was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. UNESCO describes the Bungle Bungles as the world’s most outstanding example of cone karst in sandstone. The formations are also recognised for the remarkable combination of geological, biological and erosional processes that created them.
Today, visitors can explore both ends of the range. The southern section is home to the classic beehive domes, Cathedral Gorge and Piccaninny Creek, while the northern end is known for spectacular places such as Echidna Chasm and Mini Palms Gorge, where Livistona fan palms grow between towering cliffs.
“The Bungles is massive! From the Northern gorges to the southern beehive domes there is such a contrast. My favourite time is in the afternoon and evening – a different light show every afternoon, followed by amazing heavens with no light pollution”. Bruce Connell.
