Tunnel Creek

So after Derby we had to face reality and get back on the Northern highway and go back to Kununurra to pick up our van which had been having a little holiday without us at the caravan park. On the way we thought we'd visit Tunnel Creek which we'd run out of time on the way through the Gibb so we accessed it from the  Fitzroy Crossing end of King Leopold's Downs Way.

Tunnel Creek is very important in a aboriginal culture as it's where Jandamarra, an aboriginal freedom fighter hid out form the police in the 1800's. He was killed at the entrance by an aboriginal tracker in 1897. We saw a play about Jandamaara last year when we were in Broome so it was nice to be able to put the pieces together about his history and where his life was led.

Tunnel Creek is amazing, it is a 750 metre long tunnel through rock which you can walk through. You need a torch as there are areas of pitch black and you need a decent torch to show you where to go, our torches I'd picked up at the Imintji Road house just about cut it- of course the super duper Dolphin was back in the van- nothing like being prepared!

The entrance consists of a big open space surrounded by boulders, there was some aboriginal art there. You the head off into knee depth water which you cant see through and the tunnel gets progressively darker until you are in pitch black. There are sand bars and rocks along the way also rocks in the water which make it a little treacherous. We had run into a girl at Galvans Gorge who had fallen over in Tunnel Creek and broken her nose.

There were stalactites on the roof and bats nesting in the roof. Half way along there was a section of the roof which had collapsed so we got some light. We didn't come across many other people in the tunnel which was quite good making it very atmospheric but we could have probably done with the extra light!

As we neared the end we had one pool to walk through, we had been warned by a guy we'd met that he'd seen the red tell-tale eyes of a croc in this pool, the only way through to the end though was through this pool, which also happened to be the deepest pool.I was hoping that we wouldn't see anything and could just pretend nothing was in there.As we approached a shone my torch in the pool and sure enough there he was a fresh water crocodile just floating in the water right in our path. the kids weren't very impressed, Maddy was heard to say "I am not going in that water". But we wanted to make it to the end so I made a unanimous decision and marched into the water , turning around to see that no-one was following me.....So I "encouraged" the rest of the family to follow. I must admit it was a little unnerving up to your belly wading through water you cant see through knowing you are sharing it with at least one croc! Anyway, we made it through with all of our limbs in tact and it was quite beautiful at that end.

The worst thing was we couldn't really relax as we had to go back through that same body of water.Anyway, we all survived our brush with a croc and made it to the other end again with only harry falling over( a common occurrence as he's always running ahead while the rest of us are walking cautiously behind).

After we'd removed our soaked shoes and socks we headed off to Fitzroy Crossing for the night. Visited a very cool glass blowing studio , bit of a surprise find for Fitzroy crossing.