A Once-in-a-Lifetime Trek: Exploring 60kms of Piccaninny Creek Gorge in Purnululu National Park
A once in a lifetime hike.
KL's best ever and in Gordon's top 3, if not tied for #1!
Because we survived and we are currently on a bit of RnR from our 63kms over the last 4 days. This week's POA will be brought to you next week, after we have put ourselves back together again.
This morning, at 11am, we walked out of the Piccaninny Gorge Trek. Billed as 20-30kms return, we ended up doing 53km..... +/- a few kms for GPS shenanigans.
It's an "out and back" trail that follows the Piccaninny Creek and its tributaries or gorges or fingers - depending who you talk too.
More to come.
From: TKE Plan of Attack - Ed. 32 - The Hike to Beat All Hikes
Ok, we have recovered.
Let’s talk the Piccaninny Trek.
It still blows my mind. The scenery was unreal and I can’t remember, if ever, the last time I was that cooked from a hike. Especially the end of day 2, where we went into the fingers.
It has to be one of the wildest hikes in Australia (excluding pure bushbashing of course). Every hike I have ever complete in Australia, there has been some semblance of a guided path - marker, pole or other form of way finding. This one was a creek bed and footprints - if you could find them.
CURRENT STATE OF PLAY
Currently we are sitting on a beach in Broome, or just North of Broome. Post our hike situation it’s been a mad dash of driving and hoofing around to get here. KL and I have had a serious urge to feel that sea breeze again. After pretty much 3 months of the Top End and centre of AU, the coast has been calling our names. This means we boosted quite quickly across the Gibb River Road. Which may surprise some people, as the Gibb is an Aussie touring icon. But to be honest, this boosting situation was mainly due to the 2 of us having a bit of the post hike blues and knackeredness - we were explored out. How could any of the Gibb live up to the Pic??
ALSO, the Gibb is expensive. We didn’t clock onto how many private stations it winds its way through. Each one was between $12 and $25 for Day Passes, per person, (sorry we have to pay to swim in your waterfall?!) PLUS $30-$50, per person per night, for camping unpowered sites. Eish, bit over our budget. But you know, fair enough. If I had a Insta worthy waterfall lounging around in my backyard, I would advertise le sh*t out of it and charge an admin fee to visitors for ‘upkeep’.
This meant KL and I prioritised ‘free’ viewing and stays. Ergo, a pretty zoomie cruise through the Gibb it seemed. Dramaticisms aside, there is a whole lot to do that is free and/or cheap-cheap. There are National Parks scattered along the way too (which we visited with our Park Pass that we have paid for). Remember, we intentionally skidaddled along a bit pacier than most. Not hard in Frodo pinging along at 80kms versus stompasaurus carvanner at 40kms per hour. Maybe this is why we did a shockie 🤔
Lastly, for those reading this and wandering if the above means we skipped the icon of icons El Questro - yes my friend it does. Have we made a horrible decision in not going? Maybe, but I’m stubborn, and I stand by our decision to skip it.
Next edition we’ll round back into a few of our Gibb adventures, but this time, let’s get back to the Pic:
For those in the unknown, the Piccanniny Gorge Trek (map below for info) is a little known trek that follows the Piccanniny Creek. The start begins in the Southern end of Purnululu National Park and the path is essentially the creek. That is it. Either a creek which is dry or flowing, pending seasonal weather situation. This creek winds its way through the natural rock forms, which over time, because of erosion, have become pinnacles, domes and/or gorges. It is a wonder. You can literally see millions of years of erosion occur during this hike. At times the creek is flowing on sand, other times pebbles and rocks. Further along it’s flowing through boulders, like the size of your house brah. At other times the creek bed is the bed stone rock. We saw the water literally drop through this rock floor at one point. Did I say it is a wonder?
Day 0, or the Interview Day.
Yes, we were sternly told by the ladies at the Purnululu Visitor Centre we had to do an interview for this hike. The hike requires a permit, which in turn requires a grilling on how well prepared you are or how hardy a hiker are you, which in turn requires you to sign your life away….. 🙌.
Cutting through the gags, we understood why. Trekking through exposed landscapes, 30-40deg days with the possibility of freezing nights AND there either being too much water (wading required) or too little water (filtration and big water bladders required) meant you couldn’t be too casual about it. Which we were informed, if you were too casual about it and required rescuing, this was going to be min. a $5k bill. BOOM. Notice taken.
Day 1, to the Elbow.
Day 1 sees us up and at ‘em from before the sun is up, which was 5AM. It is half an hour from our camp site to the carpark, where we are to leave Frodo for the next few days. Along the way (and thanks Scott for the tip 👍) we oggled and took plenty of pics of the sun rising over the ‘Domes’. Magical. We then had our mandatory coffee in the carpark - KL on grinds duty and GL on pre-hike checklist duty. What a view for a coffee this was.
Car packed, solar panels out - preying they would keep our batteries pumped and fridge running for food freshness purposes, KL and I departed for our hike around 730AM (yes we faffed). Skip in step, caffeine pumping through our veins, the excitement was well high.
As far as we knew, there was only 1 other couple doing the hike. They left about 15-20mins before us and we did not see them again until we came out. If you are of the sharp kind, you might be wandering how we didn’t see them when it’s essentially an out ’n’ back track? Well my friend, good question - we were a bit surprised too. But perhaps we missed each other while the other was deep in one of the Fingers. What are the fingers? They are the side gorges (refer map for clues).
We hiked without a major break until Black Rock Pool. This was something like 13kms and 5 hours later. It’s quite hard to pinpoint the actual distance of this or in fact the entire hike. The hike is billed at 30kms return, excluding finger side tracks. We believe this 30kms is a perfect line through the gorge. We also believe that is an inaccurate representation of actually walking it. We had to zigzag from one side of the creek to the other the entire time (because of pools, boulders, cliffs or other obstacles), meaning additional kms walked. But, both our GPS’ were playing funkies with us (because of the sheer proximity and height of the gorge walls), so accuracy from them was not reliable either.
Anywho, all we know we left at 730AM and were having lunch at Black Rock Pool at 1230PM. Black Rock Pool is billed as the only reliable water source throughout the entire gorge system and hikers are advised to camp near it. Fortunately for us, the hectic Kimberley regional rains that happened a month or 2 prior meant there was an abundance of water, the entire length of the gorge. Not always flowing, but enough for us to use. We did not end up camping at Black Rock Pool and pushed on further to what is called ‘Base Camp’. Base Camp is the second camp site in the gorge that is billed as the gateway to the fingers.
We did not camp at Base Camp, but approx. 1.5kms before it - we figured the other couple would be camping there and we weren’t keen on crashing their slumber party.
Day 1 ended for us at 230PM and, by our GPS’, 17 or so kms of hiking done.
Day 2, into the Fingers.
What a bloody terrible night that was - for me (GL). KL reckons she had the best sleep ever camping - lucky her, but I don’t know how. I always find the first night of a hiking expedition the toughest. Going from our primo 3 inch memory foam Roof Top Tent mattress to a less than 1 inch blow up sleeping matt that is made for lightness over comfort is a bit of an adjustment. BUT, the main reason for my atrocious slumber was due to some form of animal - frog, bat, bird, insect - stuff knows. This bleeder made the most horrendous croaking noise. Making this much, much worse was the fact that we were deep in a gorge. Penned in on both sides by something like 100-200m high walls. The f***er’s croak echoed!!
We passed out at about 7PM, beautiful. Then at around 10PM I got hauled out of bliss to this booming, croaking echo. I’m not going to lie, it scared the shit out of me for a sec. I did not know what was coming at me. Half asleep and dazed I check outside the tent to make sure we’re not gonna get kerb stomped by some form of stampeding mammal. There was nothing in site. I put the torch away, rolled over and try again for bliss. Then and like clockwork until 3AM, this gronk boomed and croaked again. Bloody KL tells me the next day she heard nothing. I hate deep sleepers 😅
So, the Fingers.
There are 5 and each one has a uniqueness about it. E.g. Finger 1 (apparently, as we didn’t go into it) is a lot similar to the main gorge, but more bush with little elevation. Finger 3 is similar to 1, but you have to climb up and then you have a stunning view back across the main gorge. Finger 2 is essentially a cave with a creek through it that opens up on the other side. We don’t know about Finger 4 as we were told it was closed due to rock fall risk and Finger 5 was a combo of all of these - Finger 5 was our personal favourite.
If we thought Day 1 was tough, then Day 2 blew Day 1 out of the water. On the brochure/map, it describes the Gorge as getting ‘wilder’ after the elbow and closer to the fingers. Oh me lordy, that it did. It got WILD.
Going into the second day, we didn’t know if we would both need to take our packs. We opted to because of the first day’s heat and today was looking like it would be larger. Thankfully our packs were half the weight of the first day, being we only took water, food and the essentials in case of an emergency situation (e.g. first aid kit, emergency sleeping bag, cooking kit, PLB).
The plan was to boost right to the end of the main gorge. This was our first priority. We wanted to be able to say we had completed the gorge. Everything else, or any other fingers we explored was then a luxury. We left camp about 7AM and we completed the main gorge section by midday. It was so, so slow. The pebbles and baby rocks turned into giant boulders. They blocked the creek bed. So it was rock hopping slash bouldering and climbing the gorge faces to navigate our way along. Not to mention the doubling back and time spent trying to figure out which was the best way to cross a creek bed full of water, a giant boulder or a steep ledge.
It was so worth it though.
The section just after Finger 5 and Finger 5 itself were our favourites.
The section just after Finger 5 was the narrowest part of the gorge and you had to traverse the gorge walls to be able to get past. Once we had got across this section, we looked back on the way we had come. It was unbelievable. Both KL and I felt like we were looking into a window from the past. Something Jurassic. I think we stood and just stared for something like 15 or 20 minutes just absorbing it all in. There is only so often in life when you are hit by a ‘once in a lifetime’ sight. That was it.
Finger 5 itself was just plain hectic. It was also the last Finger we attempted on our way back to camp. We had heard it was amazing, hence prioritising it over the others we didn’t get too. I am so glad we decided to leave our packs behind for this one. We dropped them at the entrance to the gorge. It started off pretty much like anything else we had done and then it escalated. The map told us that the traversable part of the gorge was about 1km. What it didn’t take into account was the elevation and bouldering we had to do. We climbed, ducked, weaved and shimmied our way up this bloody gorge for what felt like hours. By this stage it was 3PM and we knew it was at least another 1-1.5 hours to get to camp. But we were determined to make it to the top. But it was a FALSE summit. The bloody track went up and then went down. Down into another world. The ‘Echo Chamber’ the map told us. We thought we had seen it all by then. But Finger 5 gave us one last surprise. A world that got us feeling like we had just stepped onto a tropical island. White sand, palm trees, coconuts. Only we were hemmed in by huge walls and there wasn’t a wave to be surfed anywhere.
We followed it right to the end, or the end where our energy levels told us we couldn’t do anymore climbing. We still had to climb our way back out and down to our packs. On the way back out thought we reached that false summit and the view smacked us in the face. We reached it in the middle of sunset. The gorge walls were turning that magnificent reddy-pink and beginning to glow. The sheer size of the walls still gets me now reflecting on it. I can’t imagine what this place would be like during the wet season. On the way down, we counted 15 waterfall run offs down the cliffs. Nuts.
We made it back to camp at 5PM. Completely and utterly exhausted. Not even the stupid-bloody croaker kept me up that night I passed out so hard.
Day 3, The End.
Another 5AM wake up, a quick pack down and we were on the trail out just after 6AM. We wanted to beat the heat and walk through the gorge as the sun began to hit the cliff faces.
We were excited to be heading out, but also sad that our gorge trek was coming to an end.
Besides stopping to chat to a few other hikers, keen on getting some info about the Pic Trek, we made good progress and were back at Frodo by 1030AM. It was amusing how quickly you learnt to walk in the creek bed - prioritising different types of surfaces to be able to walk more efficiently.
Our final act of the Pic Trek was to ‘check-out’ at the Visitor Centre. We certainly didn’t want that $5k bill sent our way.
What an amazing experience and we would recommend it to anyone, who was a proficient hiker of course. It was not easy. But we would highly, highly recommend Purnululu National Park to anyone and everyone - it needs to be on your bucket list. Our top National Park of the trip so far. The other iconic formations are much easier to get into and view. Here are some more photos of our other explorations in Purnululu:
Echidna Chasm.
Mini Palms Gorge.
The Domes.
Cathedral Gorge.
LOOK AHEAD
The plan for this next week is a bit more of a slower paced one. We want to explore Broome and surrounds. We have also come into a bit of a suspension issue with Frodo. The front driver side shock absorber has blown a seal and leaking oil. Sad face. Shockies are one of those parts that you can’t just patch up. Once its gone, its gone. I noticed it the first night we got into Broome. I did the nightly rounds and eyeballed oil all over the front driver wheel well. Not ideal.
Yesterday morning we found out Broome had a Toyota dealership and we stopped by., got an expert opinion and it was one of 2 options. The suspension we have installed is an ‘East Coast’ suspension, apparently, and not many on the West Coast seem to stock it. West Coasters like Tuff Dog or Old Man Emu suspension, apparently, and we have EFS. The closest stockist we could find was South of Perth - Kalgoorlie or in Darwin. Meaning we had to source it and freight it and they could install it for us. Or, they could supply Old Man Emu suspension, but both front shocks and spring suspension systems would have to be re-done (it is strongly recommended not to run 2 different systems on an end). After a bit of research on EFS supply and freight time/costs, we decided to go with Broome Toyota’s Old Man Emu recommendation. It will be more expensive, but means we could be on the road by next week Wednesday again. With they way freight and stock of parts is these days, we couldn’t get a definitive timeline on EFS supply.
So, this next week will be catching up on life admin and work. By this we’re trying to get up to date with all our photos and videos. KL and I have pushed go on our Youtube videos (exciting). We now have 11 (I think) live and scheduled videos and are pulling together another 4. We want to have everything we have filmed to date and uploaded to the Tube pre leaving Broome. The plan is to try and keep to a schedule of some form of video a week.
Something to keep us pre-occupied with
Anyways, keep on keepin’ on and as always
Thanks for reading 🙂
Love KL & GL.
Key Travel Stats: Distance travelled: 15,060kmsWild animal of the week: Hairy KLCurrent Map posi:
(if you have any questions, don’t be afraid to send them through on any one of our social links above 🙂)
