12th October - Bungle Bungles – Purnululu National Park WA

 

"You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel………" Kenny Roger's crooning words from the song 'Lucille' run through my head, albeit slightly varied lyrics due to our circumstances.

 

After a fleeting visit to the mostly undiscovered Bungle Bungle range, 300 km south of Kununurra, we had left the park and headed north to the Gibb River Rd and the famous El Questro station. Having set up camp and unstuck the shorts from the sweaty seat covers, we relaxed, pulled out a beer and began discussing the day's events.

 

Minutes into this, Max (looking over the car) exclaimed that we had lost our spare tyre from its cable mount under the car! Given that it was a brand new unused Mickey Thompson tyre and new rim, it is quite an expensive bit of equipment to just lose.

 

Thanks to the patience of my parents who were happy to take another day out of their time dependant travel schedule and look after the grandkids, the next day we were able to head back to the very rough Bungle Bungle track in search of our 'loose wheel.'

 

It was always going to be a gamble…$200 in fuel alone to drive there and back, despite whether we found the tyre or not. We left at 6.30am. The road back included 50km on the dusty Gibb River Rd, 200km on the bitumen and then 56km into the Bungle Bungles on a rough, un-maintained track that requires careful negotiation and slow going. It takes nearly two hours to travel the 56km.

 

Anyway moral of the story is we did not find the spare wheel. A replacement wheel and tyre ended up costing us $598 from the dude at Bridgestone in Kununurra at ten minutes to 5pm. Nice going!

 

Our arrival in Kununurra was delayed slightly by stopping to help a Sydney couple on their honeymoon. The young couple, glowing with newly wed enthusiasm, were on a road trip from Broome to Freemantle in a Britz camper. They had blown one tyre, and soon realised their second had a very fast leak. As we have two air compressors, we spent the last 100km stopping every 15-20km to inflate their fast leaking tyre, so they too could make it into Kununurra for replacements. Aaahhh…. eventful day.

 

All was good that night as we pulled into El Questro at 7pm, in time to kiss the kids good night. We were relieved to get out of the car and did not want to let that new spare tyre too far out of our sight.

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