Really roughing it in the outback

A sickening sensation tickled the pit of my stomach as our truck plunged over the lip of a dry riverbed, jarred along its stony bottom and lurched up the other side. It was the 50th gully we had crossed in three hours. My heart was in my mouth, and my backside ached.

My suffering was so distracting that I barely noticed the large Toyota Land Cruiser barreling around the next bend, bearing down on us for a head-on collision. Luckily, our driver, Glen Steggles, was paying more attention. He swerved off the track at the last second, narrowly avoiding the Toyota and plunging us into the thick undergrowth. A sharp metallic crack rang through the cab as we ran headlong into some boulders. We skidded to a dusty halt and clambered out to inspect the damage. The car bore a jagged scar on its underbelly and a large dent in the foot rail. “Not too bad,” I said, nodding approval, and we continued on our way. This kind of thing happened all the time in the Kimberley.

The Kimberley has been called Australia’s last frontier, and with good reason. The 140,000-square-mile wilderness in the far northwest is buttressed on one side by the Great Sandy Desert and on the other by an uninhabited coastline. It is home to only 25,000 people, making it one of the least densely populated places on Earth. Furthermore, at least 30% of those people are of aboriginal descent -- 10 times the national average. European civilization has barely made a mark here.

The main reason is the weather: a monsoon climate whose two seasons have a Jekyll-and-Hyde relationship, varying from baking aridity in the winter to knock-’em-down storms and widespread flooding in the summer. In the Wet, from November to April, easily forded rivers become mile-wide torrents, the temperature soars to a stifling 110 degrees and all but air traffic comes to a standstill. During the Dry, travel is possible, but only on an isolated network of rough dirt roads. And that’s what draws most visitors: the glorious isolation, the rugged beauty of a wilderness that will never be tamed.

That was what stuck in my mind on my first trip to Australia in 2001, under a yearlong working visa program available to British citizens. I longed to explore Australia’s wildest places from the moment I set foot on the continent.

While working as a waiter in Sydney, I met several like-minded travelers in their mid-20s, including Glen. The Aussie just happened to own a new SUV and was keen to test its mettle. We quit our jobs and cruised off into the outback with three others, Tamsin Hoare, Katharine Sidenius and Chris Tanner.

We arrived in Broome -- a bohemian town on the West Kimberley coast renowned for its long white sand beaches -- in June 2001, four months and several thousand miles after leaving Sydney. Our journey had already taken in many of Australia’s highlights, but we knew that the real adventure would begin 180 miles farther west, when our steel radials first bit into the dirt of the Gibb River Road, a 417-mile track that crosses the heart of the Kimberley between Broome and Kununurra. We would not see asphalt again for more than 10 days.

The Kimberley’s isolation makes it one of the great bastions of modern aboriginal culture, which has a deep and intimate connection to the land. If you travel with a knowledgeable aboriginal guide, you will probably hear countless stories of “The Dreaming,” the aboriginal creation myth. Its colorful tales of supernatural animals and ancient ancestors who created the Earth pervade the landscape, breathing mystery and spirituality into every rock and tree.

The most striking vestiges of these beliefs are the mysterious Wandjina paintings, more than 10,000 years old, which adorn rock galleries all over the Kimberley. These enigmatic figures with large white heads, dark oval eyes and long straight noses represent the protectors of the aboriginal people.

Perhaps the most dramatic story from the creation is that of Wunggud, an enormous serpent that swam in from the ocean at the beginning of the Dreaming. She burrowed deep into the Earth with her powerful body, tearing rifts and tunnels in the solid bedrock that collapsed to form deep valleys and gorges. Water flowed in from the ocean in her wake, creating the rivers that crisscross the Kimberley today.

This story seemed perfectly plausible at our first stop along Gibb River Road. Here the mighty Lennard River had sliced open and punched holes through the limestone foundation of the Napier Range with an awesome power. Spectacular rock formations -- the sheer walls of Wandjina Gorge and the dark caverns of Tunnel Creek -- dominated the scenery.

Tunnel Creek was a half-mile underground river that had bored its way through a mountain. In the Wet it can flood at any minute, but in the Dry you can walk along its sandy banks, wading intermittently through cold, still water. The tunnel’s high walls are rough and rounded. It wasn’t hard to imagine the body of Wunggud slithering through, her scales rasping along the rocky walls.

Deep in the tunnel, it was as black as pitch and more than a little spooky. A lone shaft of light pierced the gloom from a hole in the roof. Our pulses quickened when dozens of bats wheeled through the air, fluttering close to our heads.

Wandjina Gorge was no less unsettling. Jagged black walls 300 feet high, the limestone remnants of a prehistoric coral reef, towered over a series of shallow pools -- all that remains of the Lennard River in the Dry. Each pool was crammed with crocodiles. Rough, scaly bodies splashed in the water, and the hissing and snapping of fighting males reverberated throughout the gorge. The water looked cool and refreshing in the soaring heat of the day, but no one cared to get in the middle of a croc fight.

That night, while preparing dinner at the Wandjina Gorge campsite, we became aware of something moving around us. Twigs cracked; something moved beneath the tall grass. Suddenly a succession of loud metallic pings resounded from every vehicle in the campsite.

Before we knew it, thousands of crickets, as large as a man’s finger, bombarded us like a barrage of microscopic artillery. They ricocheted off our skulls, ensnared themselves in our hair and crawled up the backs of our shirts. We were no matches for such a biblical swarm, so we grabbed our dinners and fled to our tents.

Once the drama was over, sleep found us quickly. We lay beside the campfire with heavy eyelids, watching the orange embers slowly fade to black. A gentle symphony of night sounds filtered through the undergrowth -- the baritone of croaking frogs, the high chirping of crickets, the rhythmic flutter of bat wings overhead.

I rolled onto my back and gazed at the Milky Way, brighter than I had ever seen it before. It filled my dreams as I drifted off to sleep.

Sacred pools

Where the Earth Snake came to rest, pools of water formed between her coils: sacred water holes that the aboriginals know as Wunggud places. They are the jewels of the Kimberley, where crystalline shards of water explode over blood red cliffs and still pools reflect the cobalt sky like a mirror. The aboriginals believe that great powers dwell in the waters. People come to Wunggud places to be cured of sickness; pregnant women come so that the spirit of their unborn child may enter its body through the water.

In time, we too came to revere them. There were no hotels on the dusty trail beyond Wandjina Gorge. All campgrounds were rough affairs, with pit toilets and, most important, no showers. After a long, hot day of driving, the virgin waters of Bell Gorge, Manning Gorge, Galvan Gorge or any of the other little oases that lined the road became our daily salvation from the searing heat of the Dry.

Barely would the car come to a halt before we were tearing off our clothes and leaping into the cooling waters. They soothed our bodies and revitalized our minds in a way that really did seem magical. Days slipped idly by as we lazed in the shade of pandanus trees, showered in crystal cascades and sought refuge from the searing heat beneath the glassy waters.

So far the drive on the newly graded Gibb River Road had been pretty easy. Our needle hovered at a steady 50 mph, and the endless expanses of Kimberley country -- rocky yellow plains, dry stunted forest and cloudless blue skies -- blew by in a blur.

That became a dim memory as we left the Gibb River Road and turned south toward Purnululu National Park (also known as the Bungle Bungle Mountains), the last stop on our journey. After a brief stretch of asphalt, the roadway became a mess of corrugations. The car shook for endless hours, as if someone were pounding on the roof with a pneumatic drill.

As we drew closer to the park, things got even stickier. A season of flood and rain had cleaved deep gullies and washouts into the gravel track. In several places the road was so mangled that we got out of the car and onto our hands and knees, surveying every possible angle to figure out how we were going to make it through. Our speed dropped to 15 mph, and we spent the rest of the afternoon bouncing around the inside of the cabin like the beads in maracas.

Night fell, and we were still far from our destination. Driving in the dark was unsettling. Twisted branches, bleached a ghostly white in the halogen flare of our spotlights, loomed at us by the roadside. Dozens of tiny eyes glinted at the edge of our vision. Our relief was palpable an hour later, when we first saw the friendly sight of cars and tents at the Bungle Bungles’ campsite. Too exhausted to set up camp, we unrolled our sleeping mats on the rocky ground and fell immediately into a hard slumber.

In the secret garden

I awoke suddenly the next morning to the piercing howl of a dingo. The sun had not yet risen, and the air was cool and heavy. A fine white mist shrouded the meadows, as if an ancient spirit were clinging to the pale trunks of the trees. But when its first rays struck the land, everything burst to life. The white trunks of ghost gums blazed orange and yellow. The tall termite mounds that studded the plains glistened like gold.

Striped orange domes of sandstone, like a metropolis of giant beehives, grew up from the dry earth. One would be as perfectly smooth and rounded as a giant stone egg; its neighbor would be peppered with holes. Exposed outcrops and slender pinnacles were warped and twisted until they resembled animals or deformed human faces.

Purnululu National Park was endlessly surprising and bizarre. The park was virtually unknown, even to Australians, until the mid-1980s, when filmmakers first revealed the scenic delights hidden within its high sandstone ridges and cavernous gorges. Many of its 1,200 square miles remain unexplored, and it is one of the least developed parks in the country.

Our night’s sleep had us feeling sufficiently recovered to undertake an overnight hike through Picaninny Gorge, into the heart of the sandstone massif.

The dry riverbeds were a natural labyrinth, riddled with a maze of shallow channels and deep gullies. It was as if a deranged sculptor had been set loose with a hammer and chisel. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was walking through an old “Star Trek” set.

The morning cool soon faded, and the sun beat down ferociously. Every rock sizzled like a hot plate; every footfall kicked up clouds of choking dust. The parched spinifex grass that covered the floor scraped and jabbed at our legs like a forest of surgical needles. Suddenly even a six-mile hike started to look quite unpleasant.

Fortunately, we soon were staring into the narrow entrance to Picaninny Gorge, a dark alley flanked by twin skyscrapers of red rock. We continued into the blessed shade.

The air inside the gorge was cool and heavy. Its walls soared 600 feet above us, filling our vision in all directions. Its surface was rough and irregular, scarred by the millenniums-long battle between water and earth that resulted in its creation. Dwarfish palms and emaciated gum trees clung to the vertical walls.

As we went deeper, the vegetation grew steadily thicker. Soon we were pushing our way through thickets of eucalyptus, towered over by Livistonia palms, their fronds caressing the red sandstone walls. I felt as if we had discovered a secret garden.

We spent our final night in the gorge, tossing our sleeping bags on the sandy riverbed right where we stood.

I had been asleep for a few hours when I was woken by a faint scratching coming from the sand beneath me. Lifting up my sleeping bag, I was startled to see dozens of tiny green heads poking up from the sand -- frogs that had been passing the dry season in the damp subsoil of the riverbed. Their eyes momentarily flicked left and right before they hopped off into the bush.

It was the perfect metaphor for the Kimberley. At first it can seem a parched and unforgiving wilderness. But just below the surface, there is an inextinguishable life force that will surprise and delight.

The aboriginals call this force Yorro Yorro: a constantly recurring process of creation and rebirth. Each day it revitalizes and renews the Kimberley. It did the same to me.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Into the heart of the Kimberley

GETTING THERE:

From LAX, Qantas has connecting service (several changes of planes) to Perth. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $2,236.95.

TELEPHONES:

To call the numbers below from the U.S., dial 011 (the international dialing code), 61 (country code for Australia), 8 (the area code) and the local number.

GETTING AROUND:

Independent travel requires a sturdy four-wheel-drive vehicle, plenty of camping gear and some outback experience. Four-wheel-drives can be rented from:

Hertz, 40 Frederick St., Broome, Western Australia 6725; 9192-1428, fax 9193-5452, www.hertz.com, from $99 per day.

Britz Rentals, 10 Livingstone St., Broome, Western Australia 6725; 9192-2647, fax 9192-2648, www.britz.com, from $85 per day with unlimited mileage.

ORGANIZED TOURS:

Kimberley Dreams, P.O. Box 37070, Winnellie, Northern Territory 0821; 8942-0971, fax 8942-0974, www.kimberleys.com.au, has nine- to 13-day tours that depart from Broome or Darwin. Special-interest and educational tours ranging from aboriginal culture and art to scenic beauty. All-inclusive camping tours start at $113 per person, per day; homestead stays, $170.

Wilderness 4WD Adventures, P.O. Box 2071, Palmerston, Northern Territory 0831; 8941-2161, fax 8942-3377, www.wildernessadventures.com.au, runs all-inclusive nine-day tours from $761 per person.

Kimberley Wilderness Adventures, P.O. Box 2046, Broome, Western Australia 6725; 9192-5741, fax 9192-5761, www.kimberleywilderness.com.au. All-inclusive eight-day Gibb River Road camping tour costs $1,238 per person, double.

WHERE TO STAY:

Campsites are all along the Gibb River Road. Those with facilities, such as Bell Gorge and Wandjina Gorge, charge about $5 per person. Others, such as Galvan Gorge and Mitchell Falls, are free but undeveloped.

Mt. Hart Wilderness Lodge, P.O. Box 653, Derby, Western Australia 6728; 9191-4645, fax 9191-7836, www.mthart.com.au. Rate of $85 per person, double, includes dinner and breakfast.

Beverly Springs Station, P.O. Box 691, Derby, Western Australia 6728; 9191-4646, fax 9191-7878. Rate $71 per person, with dinner and breakfast; children younger than 10 free. Camping $5.65.

El Questro Homestead, P.O. Box 909, Kununurra, Western Australia 6743; 9169-1777, fax 9169-1383, www.elquestro.com.au. This million-acre cattle station, set in some of the Kimberley’s most beautiful scenery, has tent cabins from $75 per room to $480 (including meals) per person for a suite. The less wealthy can camp for $7 per person.

TO LEARN MORE:

Australian Tourist Commission, 2049 Century Park East, Suite 1920, Los Angeles, CA 90067; (800) 369-6863, fax (661) 775-4448, www.australia.com.