We were so impressed with Mr. Gregory’s efforts in the north that we decided to explore the National Park named in his honour. Fifty odd kilometres of dirt found us at Bullita Homestead (now abandoned) where we spent an unrushed couple of days exploring the area. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely park well stocked with flies and numerous other biting insects, it has a rather ordinary escarpment walk, a river that would be great for swimming in except that its infested with saltwater crocodiles. The ranger station information describes the climate as “hot and dry in the winter months and hot and humid in the summer months”. What more could the budding masochist hope for… Oh look …..are they locusts.

The two, count them, two standouts here, in no particular order, are the Stromatolites and the calcite flow.

For those unfamiliar with the above a brief description of each follows.

A Stromatolite is considered the oldest evidence of life on this planet; it is basically a whole mess of primitive bacteria that formed cabbage like colonies to feed off passing sediment. These dozy bacterial cabbages, too slow to move, became fossilized in the rock. See picture.

A calcite flow is a flow of calcium rich water that when made turbulent, by running over stuff, releases carbon dioxide and allows the formation of calcium deposit on the stuff it is running over. See picture.

Apologies for the scientific nature of the above description, however I did include pictures for the layman.

White Waterfall

The Road In

Stromatalites