4 Days Solo Camping in the Australian Outback (The Bungle Bungles)

Tucked away in the far northwest corner of Australia lies a land that has captivated the heart of every adventurer and explorer. A region so rich in ancient beauty and culture it's as if time itself has stood still. Welcome to the Kimberley. For years this place has occupied a special space in my mind, igniting a deep desire to explore its wild and harsh landscapes. The dangers here are real but so is the Allure. I begin my pilgrimage in Sydney flying across the country to the remote town of Kununurra. From there I embark on a five-hour journey across the dry and dusty outback to one of the most spectacular locations in all of Australia, the Bungle Bungles. Here I will spend the next four days hiking deep into the heart of this majestic and spiritual place. Well guys welcome to the Kimberley. I can't believe I'm actually saying that. This place has been at the top of my bucket list for so bloody long so it feels absolutely amazing to finally be out here walking this country. Now we're doing this hike called the Piccadilly Creek Gorge hike and it's renowned as one of the most like spectacular hikes in all of Australia. So we're going to be walking about eight kilometers up this creek and then we're going to be turning left and exploring this gorge that goes into the heart of the Bungle Bungles. And from what I've seen it just looks absolutely amazing so I cannot wait to get in there and start exploring it. So we're going to be out here for three nights and four days so that should give us enough time to sort of explore the gorge and yeah just really sort of soak up this beautiful landscape. Yeah so as you guys can see this place is like renowned for its domed rock formations which is pretty incredible. It's amazing how these form. Well I've only been walking for about an hour done around about three k's already it is bloody hot and it's like 10 a.m in the morning as well. Wow I don't think the camera's going to do it justice but that cliff is massive. I've just come into the shade here just the sun's hitting behind this cliff and it feels so nice. But how's this actually just there you've got a dried up waterfall and just imagine this place in the wet season there'd be just waterfalls absolutely everywhere and they would just be thundering down it'd be a completely different place. What a magical spot. When I think of the Kimberley this is like exactly what I envision. It's just beautiful to waterholes like this. It is hot. It's really hot. Well not gonna lie I think I definitely underestimated the heat out here. It is bloody hot. We're going into winter as well so I can't even imagine this place like in summer. Actually I'm pretty sure they close this area in summer during the wet season but yeah even like in autumn it's still stinking hot. At least there's some water because this place does dry up like I think give it another month or so apparently this creek's meant to be pretty dry so at least here collecting water shouldn't be too much of an issue. All right so finally made it to a spot called the Elbow. This is a point on the creek where it turns 90 degrees and then it cuts its way into the belly of the beast so yeah we'll start making our way now into the gorge and find a spot to set up camp. That sun is absolutely cooking me. It's so hot like even just like the radiating heat off the ground. Oh man I'm working up a sweat. Wow wow wow wow that is insane. Man this is one hell of a place. Hopefully the camera's still doing justice of just how steep impressive these cliffs are and such beautiful colours as well like the sort of contrast between like the orange rock and the green vegetation. It's absolutely beautiful. All right so made it to the base camp area so we're going to go set up on that little beach over there. So this is an area that a lot of people come to camp out so that way the next day they can just leave the gear set up here and go explore the five fingers of the rest of the gorge. So I think I'll probably do the same. It's a really nice spot though. Awesome view of the cliffs around us. There's this massive waterfall here too. Obviously it's not flowing but man I love to see that thing during the wet season. But yeah we've got a nice option for camp as well. Nice flat sandy beach. So let's get the tents set up. And also just regarding crocodiles I'm sure I'm getting a lot of people asking me about that. You don't get any saltwater crocs in this area and they're the ones to watch out for. I think you do get freshwater crocs in this kind of like greater area but from what I understand there aren't any freshwater crocs up here. At least that's what everyone says that I've spoken to and the lady in the visitor centre didn't mention anything about crocs either. So fingers crossed to be right. It is a pretty deep dark hole behind this. So yeah still a little bit sketchy. It's definitely something that I'm not used to. So we camped in croc country even if they are freshies. But we should be sweet. Hopefully. Man look at my shirt. Look at all the salt on it. That is pretty charming. That's day one. All right so for this trip we're rocking a few new pieces of gear. So I've got the Sea to Summit Alto 110 which is a semi free seating tent. We've got the Sea to Summit Ember Quilt and then just a little Sea to Summit Errol Spiller. The cool thing about where Sea to Summit store their poles is this actually, you pull the poles out and it actually doubles as a little light box. So you put your head torch inside there and hang that up inside the tent and it gives you some nice lighting. Which is pretty unique. Well not gonna lie, I'm struggling a bit. I feel so dehydrated. I've got like a splitting headache. I just feel absolutely exhausted. Today was a lot bigger than I was expecting it to be. I think I hiked around about, I think around about 13, 14 kilometers. But just yeah walking on this sand and on the pebbles and stuff it's a really slow going especially in this heat as well. Like that heat just knocked me around so much. So yeah I've got absolutely zero energy. I can get some food into us pretty soon and if we can for a bit of an early night. So get some good rest into us and hopefully tomorrow feel a lot better. So I just remembered I bought some of these off-grid hydration repair satchels. Might chuck one of these in this liter of water and try and get some salts back into me. Definitely lost a lot of salt today judging by my shirt. Let's get that good stuff in me. All right so for this trip we're actually going to try something new for dinner. So this is by off-grid provisions and these aren't dehydrated or freeze dry meals. So they're shelf stable. So basically what you do and you place the whole pouch in some boiling water for about five minutes just to heat up the contents of the pack and then it's good to go. So it's super simple to cook up. I believe the bloke who started this company is a chef. So yeah really keen to see how they taste. Like they sound bloody amazing. So I'm really keen to give it a crack. I think for tonight we'll give the potatoes and saltbush and the wagyu bolognese a go and then the next two nights we'll have the lamb curry and the venison stroganoff and we'll add some rice to both those meals. So yeah let's give it a crack. All right so to boil the water we've got this Sea to Summit collapsible pot here. So just take the handle off and inside here we've got a collapsible bowl as well as a collapsible cup and a little plate as well. So with this pot if we pop out the bottom we've got ourselves a really nice big bowl. So I think that holds around about two litres. So yeah plenty of space to be able to chuck those two pouches in there and cook them up. I could just eat these straight out of the pouch but since I've got a plate I may as well just get a chuck in the plate. It'll be a little bit easier to eat and it actually smells delicious. I'm so keen to give this a go. All right let's see how she tastes. Oh she smells so bloody good. Yep that definitely hits the spot. And exactly what I needed after a big day out hiking. Well good morning from the heart of the bungles. It sure is one hell of a place to wake up to. So for breakfast this morning we just got some muesli and then here we've got some peanut butter and then some honey. And here comes the sun. I think I like a bed when I was in the shade. Well feeling a lot better this morning than I did last night. Honestly like after I cooked dinner I was just absolutely shattered. I really think I had some sort of like heat stroke or something. I was just feeling really strange. Um yeah definitely very dehydrated. So we're trying to stay on top of the water today. Although today's I don't think as big of a walk today. But yesterday I did I did try to hydrate as much. I stopped down fairly regularly. I probably drank about six liters or something yesterday. Just goes to show like you really need to be pumping the water when you're out here. All right so I'm just getting all my gear sorted for today. Now what I think I might do I might actually just leave my tent and my sleep gear set up on this little beach here and I'll just take my essentials in the backpack and then we'll go explore the gorge today and we can come back here and camp here tonight. So that way it saves me carrying around any unnecessary weight. All right so give you guys a quick little rundown of the map. So yesterday we started the car park down here and we walked about eight kilometers up this Picanini Creek until we reached the elbow. Then we turned left and walked about four kilometers and we're now camped at this little white dot here. Now today we're going to explore the five fingers which are these side gorges that come off like the main gorge. I think it's about three kilometers from where we are now to the end of the gorge but yeah you've obviously got these side gorges that's going to add some more distance to it. So I'm expecting it's probably going to be around about eight maybe ten k's today. So that's the plan we'll try and explore most of that today and then although I think this gorge side gorge four is actually closed. I think there's a rock floor there so you can't explore that. But yeah so we'll probably come back here camp around here tonight and then for tomorrow night I'm thinking we'll probably change camp and whether we camp in the gorge somewhere else or whether we sort of come back out and camp along the Picanini Creek somewhere just to get a bit of a different vantage point and then yeah the following day will be a hike on out of here. So yeah that's the plan. All right so we've got the first finger just there which is right next to camp. I might leave that for now I'm pretty keen to sort of make my way towards the end of the gorge and explore those fingers first then on the way back I can explore these or if I'm running out of time today I can always explore that tomorrow. So well yeah make our way towards the end of the gorge. So when I was talking to the lady at the visitor center the other day she was actually saying that they're going to classify this as a grade six hike rather than a grade five spider web and which means you've got to do this hike with another person. So yeah but because it hasn't got on the website just yet obviously I booked my flights to come up here she allowed me to do it by myself but yeah I think going forward you're gonna have to come and do this with another person. So yeah I got pretty lucky there managed to squeeze in a nice little solo trip here while it's still still around and I think I might be the first person sort of like doing this trek this season because she said they only opened this gorge walk about two days ago so I think like obviously the rangers have come up here just to check it out but apart from that I haven't really seen like any footprints out so yeah pretty cool feeling to to be here the first personality of the season and this is one of those places it's actually really hard to film it's like you just can't really get a sense of just how deep this gorge is with the camera it's just so bloody impressive though. Well this section's a lot more slow going than I was expecting there's a lot of boulder hopping and you get to these like big sort of pools where you can't really wade through them so you've got to like scramble up and around them which is um yeah pretty pretty tiring especially in this heat. I've only gone about I think about two and a half days I've already had to stop like five times to drink water I'm really trying to stay on top of my hydration today because like already I can feel like yeah really thirsty so man it's so bouldery I've just gone to this section where the gorge gets pretty narrow and it's just boulder city up that way it's going to be pretty slow going. All right looks like we're through the boulders and thank god for that that was an absolute mission but yeah we've got some nice creek walking now. All right so we've made it to the end of the gorge and we're fingers number two three and four branch off and it's actually a really beautiful spot like just walking up that sort of dry creek bed it's really pretty um but yeah a bit of an issue though is there's no water around here all the little ditches around here are dry so yeah the last spot that I saw water was back where the boulders are so I've just come into finger number two and I'm going to try and walk down here a little bit to see if we can find any water because we're in a pretty deep gorge here and it's um pretty shady so hopefully there's still some water hanging around wow got a pretty deep dark hole just there remember reading about this online it's um yeah pretty crazy hey let's go have a little bit of water inside man this feels so eerie we've got some water down there which is good man this place is full of frogs and I'm pretty sure they're cane toads which is a really bad invasive species in Australia absolutely everywhere I just walked past this snake I didn't even realize it until I turned the light on not quite sure what kind of snake he is but it looks pretty sketchy that was really cool in there a little bit silly of me to probably not have a head torch on I could have so easily got by that snake I was literally probably only about that far away from it when I walked past it it wasn't until I got the torch out that I looked behind and there's a bloody snake behind me like I said I don't know what kind of snake he is but judging by the patterns on his back he doesn't look very friendly so I did collect some water from in there I was just thinking like you probably get bats in there so is that going to like do anything to the water I've obviously got my filter I've got a life straw filter but yeah I'm pretty sure they don't filter out viruses and don't bats carry viruses I don't know I've got about that much water left so I might even just try and save this I think I'm probably done for this section like I said the gorge number four is closed gorge number three is not very big you can pretty much like kind of just see it from here so I think I probably might turn around it's getting close to one o'clock anyway so maybe I'll just um yeah probably don't use that water and we'll make our way back and collect some water back where the boulders are I'm trying out a couple new water filters for this trip they're both by LifeStraw and this pouch holds about a litre of water I think and if you screw that off it's got a water filter inside of it so you just have to fill that up with water screw that on and then you can just drink straight from that which is pretty handy and I've also got this little one and if I pair that with my knock two litre water bladder that just screws onto the bottom of there and you can just squeeze the water through it and you fill up the bottle and then to back flush it it comes with this syringe so fill up with clean water you screw that onto the end and then just push the water through and just do that a few times and the air filter will be ready to go for next time we just went for a quick little nudie swim just to freshen up it felt absolutely amazing again that water definitely pretty grubby after the last couple of days so something about um quarter to four so still a bit of the afternoon left uh sunset's around about 5 30 so yeah I'm actually kind of in like looking forward to just relaxing for a bit usually like when I'm out here filming and stuff every day it's just go go go like right up until sunset um so it's actually nice just to be able to chill out and enjoy the serenity heaps of birds out so it's actually really nice just to lay back and listen to them heaps of birds and heaps of flies actually the flies aren't as bad as I thought they were going to be we went to the like when we did Uluru red center a couple years ago flies were horrendous there but actually not too bad here time to get some sugar into us all right so tonight we're going to have the venison stroganoff and then we'll add half this rice and we'll save the other half for tomorrow night's dinner we're just about to lose that light man the birds are going off their head I think they're crows it's so cool to listen to in this gorge just like echoes let's give this one a go man that is actually really tasty it's honestly really nice like that you guys can see it but that is a big chunk of meat right there that's definitely something you don't get in dehydrated meals man I can't believe I'm actually in the Kimberley it's like one of those like pinchy moments like for the last like probably four years or so I've had like a real sort of draw to come to this area to actually finally be here it's a pretty special feeling I've just come up over here to try and get out of the sun for a bit because down on that beach it is just getting cooked so one thing about this place is I've really come to not like the sun out here it's just so brutal I think I definitely underestimated the heat maybe or just being how dehydrated I am I just cannot seem to get on top of it like I'm not hungry at all I'm only eating because I feel like I need to eat something breaky but all I want to do is just drink and I even then I feel like I can't even drink enough hey so yeah I think I'm definitely on the dehydrated side I guess I would have drank gosh close to probably 10 litres hey doing trips like this in country like this definitely makes you appreciate how the old aboriginal mobs used to do it and just even like the early explorers like the early settlers and stuff when they tried to find their way across the country not knowing where they're going where the water's going to be or if there's going to be any water because half this country's desert sorry oh man those guys are some tough men well I'm not really feeling my normal self I'm feeling a bit off I can't quite tell if it's like dehydration or if I'm actually starting to get a bit sick and my throat's been feeling a bit funny since last night and even just talking now like my voice sounds a bit different but um yeah I've just got absolutely no energy this morning it's really strange I've just been trying to snap out of it but I just keep going back into these little slumps I don't know whether I'm being soft or yeah whether something's up yeah a bit frustrating um I think what I'll probably do today is I don't think I'll probably just like to push myself too much today but there is a side canyon like the first gorge just there so I'll probably go explore that for a little bit and then we'll um we'll make our way back outside of the main gorge and I think there's a cool water hole we could probably camp up for tonight we'll find somewhere around there so that way tomorrow we don't have as big of a walk because I've got to be back the lady said I have to be back by 4pm at the visitor center otherwise they send a rescue chopper to look for me and they're being serious as well so yeah I've got to make sure I get back by 4pm tomorrow well hopefully you guys can get a good sense of like how tall these cliffs are that thing is massive it's like the size of a skyscraper it's huge you've really got to wonder like how a place like this forms like this rock must be so old to think that this rock was originally laid down I believe is like a an ancient river or something like that so then the sediment built up turned to sandstone and then I believe this kind of mountain range got like uplifted and then this gorge had to form like whether this gorge was like sort of partly formed with the upheaval of the land or whether the creek cut it out or whether a bit of both but it's just it's actually insane to think about our little brains cannot comprehend that kind of a time man what an incredible spot because massive cliffs just towering around us all these beautiful cabbage tree palms surrounding the waterhole you've got a big waterfall just there which would be absolutely insane to see during the wet season it's beautiful I'd love to go for a swim but from what I understand this is the only sort of most reliable water source in the whole gorge so they say here they ask you to not to swim in here or do any washing up or anything like that in this just to keep it nice and pristine in case yeah all the other waterholes dry up how good are sesame snaps I've actually just been laying here for about an hour it's been actually quite nice to get out of the sun and just chill out for a bit listen to all the birds there's heaps of crows around before I might have even had a little siesta as well which is actually quite nice but I'm getting pretty close to two o'clock something might make a move and yeah we're trying to find a camp fresh water mussel that's pretty cool oh man walking on these sand and pebbles is killing me I'm gonna try and pull over and find a camp soon I've had enough this hike has turned out to be a lot harder than I was expecting just walking on this sand and pebbles and the heat man she's tough I can kind of see why they wouldn't upgrade it to a class six like you think it'd be easy just following a river like a creek bed but man she takes it out of you well I feel like today or even this trip has been a lot of whinging so I apologize for that guys but I'm trying to keep it real unless you guys um you know what I really think and how I really feel oh man my voice is I can't even talk properly I'm buggered absolutely buggered before I get all my stuff out of the bag I'll give you guys a quick little look at the new pack that I'm rocking for this trip the brand's called Whipper and so they're based out of the Blue Mountains they're actually an offshoot brand of Summit Gear so some of you guys might have heard of Summit Gear in the Blue Mountains they make a lot of sort of canyoning and climbing packs so yeah Whipper is their new brand which is um all about sort of ultralight packs and yeah they actually hand make all these packs in the Blue Mountains I'm pretty sure like they're one of the only like Australian manufacturers of backpacks left so it's really cool to see that um there's at least one one brand getting around that actually makes their packs in Australia and so far it's been a really good pack like I really like this big front pocket on it because a lot of ultralight packs seem to have that kind of mesh or that like stretching material at the front whereas um I really like the fact this is a nice big pocket so I can put my first aid kit and stuff in there and it keeps it um nice and dry if it was to rain and I also really like about this pack um so compared to my Hyperlite mounting gear pack it's actually got load lifters which is honestly I don't know why the Hyperlite doesn't have these but that's um yeah so good for getting that weight closer and also I'm really liking yeah the way this um yeah the shoulder strap here is designed because with the Hyperlite it's hard to explain but these um straps come straight out of the back of the backpack whereas this has kind of got a bit of a contour to it I find with the Hyperlite it kind of digs into your traps whereas um this one's really comfy so it's only first time using it this is a 60 litre pack it's probably slightly like too big for this trip I probably could have got away with maybe like a 45 litre or something or a 50 litre but yeah so far I really like it seems um it seems a really nice pack and tonight we're going to have that Outback lamb curry and just some of the rice as well oh it's a little bit windy tonight that actually smells really really nice now since there's a curry I hope it's not spicy because I'm not very good with spice yeah that's really nice and once again it's actually got big chunks of lamb in it as well all right maybe it's a little bit spicy rather than absolute sook when it comes to spice anyway I'm gonna finish this off I'll see you guys in the morning well it's about 6am decided I'll try and get up early and um yeah pack everything down and start walking before the heat of the day hits us I'm definitely feeling a little bit sick eh that's a problem when you go through airports to do trips like this is um you can very easily pick up a sickness I'm trying to think of how to sign this video off not quite sure what to say about this trip on the one hand it has been absolutely spectacular like one of the most beautiful places I've ever on the other hand it was brutal just the dehydration like I just I didn't expect it to knock me around so much out here that first day was um yeah I'm sure that was definitely some sort of heat stroke when I went to bed that night I was just absolutely shattered it's definitely been a tough trip but then there's moments like this like I've just been laying under this tree just by this little water hole just listening to the birds it's just so beautiful like I found every time I've sort of stopped to collect water I would just lay down and look up there at the canyon walls and it truly is a remarkable place it definitely makes you work for it so yeah like I said not quite sure this video is going to turn out like hopefully you guys enjoyed it whatever it ended up being it was um even though it was a tough trip it was still yeah really beautiful I really enjoyed it definitely won't be the last time you come back to the Kimberley but I think it's definitely one place I've got to acclimatize to anyway guys thanks for watching hooray