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It’s the first morning on Day One of my Kimberley Safari tour, and already our tour guide Amanda is playing havoc with the itinerary. “I think it says we canoe in Katherine Gorge tomorrow?” This is addressed towards Bob and Mary, a sixty-ish couple from New Zealand who are scrutinising their copy as our Landcruiser rolls through the streets of Darwin. “We won’t be doing that” says Amanda. “And camping overnight in the Bungle Bungles – we won’t be doing that either.” Bob and Mary look a bit uncertain at Amanda’s freewheeling approach, but right away I like her style. The gorges, she says, get better and less crowded once we cross the Western Australia border, and the Bungle Bungles are too hot for more than a single day’s hiking. “Trust me”, she says with a grin. “This way we’ll spend more time on the Gibb River Road – that’s the heart of the Kimberley, and what you’ve come out here to see.”

Amanda’s impatience to abandon the Northern Territory had us all in agreement to spend two days putting kilometres behind us in a dash for the WA border. Day Three was mercifully a shorter one in the car and it was early afternoon when we pulled in to our campsite beside the Keep River, thirty kilometres or so shy of Kununurra and the eastern edge of the Kimberley. The campground trailhead was marked “Gurrandalng Walk” and a sign advised that a two-kilometre track looped through country belonging to the Mirriwung and Gaderong people. I walked the trail alone, glad for an hour’s solitude and the chance to take in some stunning stone escarpments that glowed in a hundred shades of red and gold, and to breathe in the cool oases of eucalypts and livistana palms.

Day Four saw us strike camp before sunrise in order to reach the dam at the top of Lake Argyle, where we would begin a two-day canoe paddle north along the Ord River. On the first day we covered twenty-three winding kilometres, which sounds tougher than it is, given that the current was taking us along at a steady four knots. All eyes were out for freshwater crocs; an absence of “salties” means this river is safe for swimming, which we did often under the blazing blue sky. It was early afternoon when we reached Coolamon Creek bush camp, hidden behind the reeds of a tiny river cul de sac. Wooden sleeping platforms, a fireplace with gas supply, spring-fed shower and a pit toilet made our private campsite seem like the epitome of luxury bush living.

During our second day on the river we heard, rather than saw, several “freshies” (freshwater crocs), their presence announced by a scrabbling on the rocks followed by a ker-splash as they hit the water. It was otherwise an incredibly peaceful day, and I’d have happily stretched the two days into three, despite the lure of laundry and hot showers at Hidden Valley Caravan Park back in Kununurra. Just ahead however, was our hugely anticipated flight into the Bungle Bungles.

Every person I knew who’d laid eyes on these bizarre rock formations had said the same thing: “You have to see the Bungle Bungles from the air”. As our Cessna took off from Kununurra airport, the seven members of our party had cameras at the ready, in expectation of our first sight of one of the natural wonders of the world. By the time we reached the first of the distinctive beehive-shaped domes, however, I’d already put mine away, having decided this was not a moment to experience from behind a camera lens.

On the ground we were collected by 4WD coach and transported to the hiking trailhead for the Bungle Bungles (officially Purnululu National Park, but why say that when you can say ‘Bungle Bungles’?). Here Amanda’s re-worked itinerary proved eminently sensible, given the forty-degree heat that radiated from the domes and the total absence of shade; clearly, this was no place to camp out overnight.

Days Seven through Eleven we were back aboard the Landcruiser, rattling across the corrugations of the Gibb River Rd which runs from Kununurra all the way to Derby on the WA coast. The last of our campsites with proper facilities would be at El Questro Station, reached via a stop at Emma Gorge where a one kilometre forested walk led to a freezing waterhole. Sheer walls and a dramatic roof overhang made an eerily cathedral-like atmosphere for a well-earned and slightly chilly swim.

On the way out of Emma Gorge, I spent some time leafing through books of photographs at the campground visitor centre, which told the story of our final few days – a dry and dusty drive, followed by a hike into a gorge and then a swim in stunning surrounds. My own favourites were Upper Manning Gorge and Bell Gorge, whose glorious cascades flow into multi-tiered pools bathed in sunshine all day long.

One memorable feature of our bush camping experience was a two-night stay near Imintji aboriginal community. It was nice to have neighbours to join us for a barbecue, and to watch the faces of the Imintji kids switch from shyness to delight and back again in the company of seven strangers. Unsurprisingly perhaps, we found the consensus among those who live along “the Gibb” is that it should remain as it is, the better to discourage vehicle traffic and preserve the Kimberley as one of the world’s last frontiers.

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