August 12, 2022
Day 25: side trip to Tunnel Creek
I had a relaxed morning, not getting up til 5:45, and having porridge for breakfast. I filtered some water, watched the people in the broken camper van attempt to pack up and headed off to Tunnel Creek about 7:30. As soon as I turned onto the road I was heading into the wind. It was tough going. But the views were amazing, alongside the range that forms Windjana Gorge on the left and looking over a big plain to the right. The road was not too bad. But the wind was a total pain. I was not very happy when people starting passing me as the dust blew straight back into me with the wind. Luckily there weren’t too many cars going past. Some of them tried to slow down for a chat but I was not chatty. I was even less happy when the same cars started passing me going back the other way having done the walk in less than the time it took me to even get there.
The range kind of petered out from the striking cliffs at Windjana, to some low hills, then repappeared close to Tunnel Creek.
I got there after more than three hours (35k, not loaded), at the same time as an APT tour bus. A guy from there asked me “do you get hot?”. No, I have my own microclimate. He got a very surly response. But I ate a mandarin and felt better soon.
Tunnel Creek is where Jandamarra, a Bunuba freedom fighter in the 1890s holed up. There was some good info on him. He was apparently banished by the Bunuba as a young man for illegal “sexual encounters”, so turned to a “life of promiscuity” while learning how to shoot etc on stations before getting taken back in. My read of it was that turns it everywhere people who are inspirational leaders are often not great people to know.
Eventually he ended up working for the police, before shooting his white police companion and freeing, and arming, the Bunuba prisoners from the Lillimoora police station near the gorge. After that and another attack, the Bunuba got massacred in retribution, probably in their hundreds, and Jandamarra changed tactics, doing nuisance raids on pastoralists, and making sure no Bunuba would work for white men here.
Because that would have meant no development, the police brought in another Aboriginal tracker from the Pilbara who eventually shot Jandamarra outside tunnel creek.
The sign ended by saying “reconciliation is much closer now” which is a low bar from people being massacred. But the station adjacent to the national park is Bunuba owned so that’s something.
Eventually I headed into the tunnel. There’s a bit of scrambling around/over big rocks to get in, then it’s relatively easy walking on sand mostly.
The tunnel goes for 750m and curves around. I think it’s fed by a spring at the bend. There is a collapsed roof in the middle for some relief. It was really amazing. I ended up by myself with my head torch following other people’s footsteps. Sometimes you have to wade through the creek, it was up to the top of my thighs at the deepest point and very cold. You can see crocodile eyes in there and bats.
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I wandered up the bank a little and saw some Aboriginal rockpainting.
Then I steeled myself for the return journey. Usually I don’t ride for 3 hours into a headwind to do something that freaks me out but it was so interesting. I thought heading back might be better cause I’d know kind of where I was going but I ended up with 4 other people, who caught me up cause I was barefoot and they were wearing water shoes. Then we passed an entire tour group in the deep water section all chattering about it. The combination of lots of people talking and the cave was way worse than being by myself.
Obviously I made it back fine, and met my neighbours from the campground having lunch inside the cave entrance. I did not stop to chat long but headed outside to the fresh air to eat my pre-prepared peanut butter wrap.
The wind wasn’t a perfect tailwind on the way home as it had died down a bit but it still took a lot less effort and nearly a whole hour less to get back.
I stopped to look at the ruins of the Lillimoora prison. It seems even more cruel to chain up Bunuba people for stupid or totally mad up charges just underneath a landform they see as sacred.
On the final stretch to the campground someone started filming me out the window and I was a bit cranky, although not as cranky as I would’ve been on the way out. Then the car stopped and it was my neighbours who said, “if you ride on the other side of the road we can video you with the cliffs in the background”. So now I have a video of me riding self consciously along a pretty road but can’t figure out how to upload it.
Despite camping in full view of the side I still hadn’t been into the gorge so I set out to do that.
It’s a wide gorge, mostly taken up by sandy beaches and a little bit of river. It’s crocodile breeding season so there are freshies everywhere and you’re not supposed to swIm. It didn’t look as inviting as the other gorges anyway. There are fossils of prehistoric sea creatures in the cliffs. There’s a path that goes for 3.5 k, which I did not have time for but I went along it a bit til I came to a sandy beach where I sat to watch the sun sink towards the cliffs.
I headed back up the path and found that it was a popular activity to walk into the first sandy beach to watch sunset.
I did the savannah walk, just a 1k trail outside the gorge.
Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 1,587 km (986 miles)
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