Week 10 Mundatharrda - Kennedy Range National Park

Kennedy Range National Park is truly spectacular. It is remote and rugged, red dirt and silence, rocks and vibrant colours. In this grand ancient landscape, it feels spiritual. Is it the scale or the rich colour palette? Or is it the sense of time etched onto the cliff faces and gullies, the stories in the trees clinging to the rocks and crevices? 

For the Inggarda people, the traditional owners, this is a place of great cultural significance, with many sacred sites throughout the range. Known as Mundatharrda in the Inggarda language, the Range was a gathering place for the old people where they would trade, gather medicine and hold ceremonies. 

We spent five glorious days here exploring the many offerings the park has, touring with Sean and Jo whom we met on Dirk Hartog Island. We made a loose plan to meet in the Kennedy Range National Park at Temple Gorge Campground. We were keen to do the Loop Track and had read that towing is not recommended. 

But with two vehicles, what could possibly go wrong?

Established as a pastoral endeavour in the late 1850s, I don’t know how the colonial settlers survived, on approximately 230 millimetres per annum  whichmakes this a semi-arid or desert landscape with little water or feed for stock. From the top of the range looking into the valley, there is evidence of waterways, with taller shrubs and trees lining the gullies tracing any precipitation that would fall, a beautiful green contrast to the many hues of red rock, sand and dirt. But on the whole, it is hot and dry and dusty.

The cliffs are steep and sheer, sedimentary layers clearly evident. Of note, we saw circular purple patterns in the rocks in Temple Gorge, as though a bubble or lava has been captured in time. 

Bonsai style shrubs with gnarled, hardened trunks survive in the hard ground, yellow and purple branches or yellow leaves, sage green, grey and white, red, maroon, claret, burgundy. So many shades of red and orange. The light in the valley on the leaves catches the sun, glowing and shimmering silver at different times of the day. Sunrise in these places with the glowing rock is the best time to appreciate the golden light. 

From the campground, we walked into Temple Gorge at sunset and at sunrise walked the escarpment trail. We also visited Honeycomb Gorge, a canyon whose red rock has been impacted by weather, with thousands of small holes as the name suggests. This is a sacred site for the Inggarda people. These were imposing walls and, being late morning, we certainly appreciated the shade. 

After Temple Gorge, we spent four days travelling along the 257 kilometre Loop Track, camping first on the Gascoyne River riverbed and then Lake Julia before the ascent to the top of the range. We drove slowly over washed out creek beds and rocky, sandy sections, stopping often for filming or pictures of the terrain and landscape. 

There are a number of permanent, lush springs here, surrounded by glorious gums, hills rising nearby and red cliff faces. We stopped at each, enjoying more shade and the cool beside the water. 

Mooka Spring is the only home in Australia to Mookaite, a multi-coloured marble-like Jasper stone. Its smooth surface and rich colour spectrum are quite stunning. 

On the top of the range, we were surprised to be driving through a red sand dune system, reminding Jeremy of the Simpson Desert. With less rock and few creek beds up here we sped along the track at around 40 kph! We camped near the Great Gorge and then, back down on the plain on our last night, near the old Shearing Shed, where we watched lightning in the distance. Stunning! And each night we cooked on a fire, chatting and sharing lively conversation together. 

Of course we had a few issues along the way, apart from the boggings at our first camp spot on the Gascoyne Riverbed. Our trailer brakes have been giving us a little grief, working intermittently. Annoying and a serious concern, given that the track was unknown. Jeremy climbed under the trailer and he explored below the driver’s dash. With Sean helping and offering suggestions, he made a few tweaks, correcting the shoddy work that the installer seemed to have completed. 

We also had a trailer tyre issue, with us waking up in the morning a few times to a completely flat tyre. Again, Jeremy and Sean located the slow leak – it was on the rim. As this happened on a Saturday we contacted a tyre shop in Carnarvon who would look at it the following week.

This is truly a track less travelled. We didn’t see many other campers while we were here and the silence, space and solitude were delightful for us all. The vast array of colours, the rocks themselves, the birdlife, such as zebra finch and emu and of course the gallant and corella. Tree trunks on riverbed, white as moon or bleached bones, skeletons in the dry river bed with their crown of shining leaves. This place is a *highly recommend* for the adventure camper.