Judbarra-Gregory National Park (2 nights)

Another large National Park (13,000km2) on the western edge of the Northern Terrority and another gem in terms of wildlife and geological formations.  Luckily the first night in the small camp site at Bullita was the night that the Ranger did a slide show about the parks history, the plants, birds, reptiles and animals.  The Ranger, Ian, is based at the Ranger Station near the camp site with his partner Jenny, who is also a Ranger.  He pointed out that having a male and female ranger worked out really well as there is a close working relationship with the traditional owners who have aspects of life that are men’s business and woman’s business.  The bush campsite was great with only a few others campers due to the access road being rough.  We tried out our recently purchased camp oven over the fire, stew and damper,yummy!!

Leon keeping an eye on the stew while Enzo writes his book

In the morning we checked out the ‘calcite flow’ (the residue from a dried up waterfall rich in calcium carbonate), the ‘tufa dams’ (walls of limestone deposition and algae growth in the dry river beds), stromatilites (prehistoric signs of life formed by bacteria under the sea/lagoons many millions of years ago) and the limestone walls of a gorge. 

Then we checked out the old Bullita cattle station homestead and out buildings, there is a crazy old boab tree there which features in the all historic photos of the site.  By lunchtime the temperature had reached 35 degrees so we retreated to the awning of the camper and took turns sitting in the cold water in our large washing tub to keep cool because we could not swim in the river, jolly crocodiles!

The crazy boab tree at the old Bullita Homestead

Stromatilite on the calcite flow walk