Rodney Campbell's Blog

At the northern end of Purnululu is Echidna Chasm (a 1 hr, 2 km return walk). The walk begins at the Echidna Chasm car park, 19 km north of the visitor centre.

Tracking the Echidna

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 28 mm, 1/30 sec at f/8, ISO 320

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

Echidna Carpark

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 28 mm, 1/125 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Initially you walk along a pebbled (some quite large pebbles mind you :)) creek bed through a palm filled gorge (Livistonia palms). Soon you start heading into a gorge with high rock walls on both sides and becomes narrower and narrower. A joint in the sandstone and conglomerate rock has been widened by water erosion thus enabling human entry.

Livistonia

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 28 mm, 1/200 sec at f/8, ISO 100

There are some boulders you need to climb and scramble over along the way, or duck under some that are stuck above you (praying for no slippage :)). The gorge is a spectacular long, narrow chasm. Note there is a steel ladder to access the innermost section. The amazing conglomerate boulders strewn along the path provide a clue to the sedimentary origin of the Bungle Bungle Range.

Echidna Chasm

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 58 mm, 1/60 sec at f/4.5, ISO 10000

In the end you find yourself in a gap that’s less than a metre wide, with walls up to 200m high, so it’s nearly completely black at the bottom. The only way to try and show the scale of the chasm is probably to try and include people in the shot :).

The Narrows

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 28 mm, 1/30 sec at f/5, ISO 360

Up into Space

NIKON D750 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 1/25 sec at f/11, ISO 100

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