2006/07 Australia trip - Tunnel Creek |
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We continued west on the Great Northern Highway for a while and then took off north on the Leopold Downs Road. This is a gravel track with corrugations, an easy and quiet if uncomfortable drive, with just a few water crossings. It took us through rocks and cliffs, other parts of the Devonian Reef that we’d seen in Geikie. It also passed through some aboriginal communities but 
these were off on side roads, so the only signs of them were the usual wrecked cars by the road, often upside down, with no wheels, and stripped of seats and anything useful.
The road took us to Tunnel Creek. As you might guess, Tunnel Creek is a creek that goes through a tunnel. It’s a natural tunnel carved by the creek, and runs for about a mile underneath the limestone hill that is part of the Devonian Reef. The tunnel is an active limestone cave, so it’s full of stalactites, calcite crystals, and the occasional waterfall. It’s about 30 feet wide and well above head height, 
so if you have a torch you can walk through it. The only snag is that the creek is full of water, so you have to be prepared to get wet. If you are lucky enough to take the right path then it’s only about knee-deep, but at least one person went for the total immersion route. There are bats in the cave and fish in the creek, as well as the occasional crocodile, though we didn’t see any crocs. Of course, once you’ve made it through you have to think about going back and trying to remember where the shallow bits are!
It’s a short drive from there to Windjana Gorge park, and the first part is the Lillmooloora Station ruin. The big story in this area is about an aborigine named Pigeon, who worked at the station with his best friend, a white man, back in the days when many whites wanted to kill all the aborigines. When the station failed financially, his friend became a policeman, and he became a tracker for the police, helping capture his own people. When he saw his people chained he killed his white friend and released his people. He then became on outlaw for three years, hiding in the Tunnel Creek area, and helping his people fight the whites until he was shot by another aborigine tracker. Enough melodrama there for a Shakespearian tragedy!