A place to sit quiety with your own thoughts

[Jill H]

Cathedral Gorge is well named. Entering its immense towering cavern is like entering a magnificent natural cathedral, a place steeped in time and history. The red and orange sandstone walls tower above you, and the white sand crunches softly underfoot. Tiny tracks from night time animals can be seen going across the sand to the central pool which sits still and undisturbed like a mirror. It is a place for hushed voices and to sit quietly with your own thoughts. It has the atmosphere of a holy place, a sanctuary.

It is a 3 kilometre walk from the carpark, terminating within an almost 360 degrees towering amphitheatre that soars above you. I recommend coming here early in the morning to fully experience the atmosphere of the gorge before the crowds arrive and you can enjoy the peace undisturbed.

Cathedral Gorge is just one of the magnificent gorges within the World Heritage Listed Purnululu National Park (also known as the Bungle Bungles) in the Kimberley region in Western Australia’s far north west.

We travelled to Purnululu recently - our first visit to this magnificent region. I took a few thousand photos while we were away, and share some with you here - taken with my Canon EOS 450D. I used a tripod for the photos inside the gorge itself, and positioned myself so the photos would avoid the bright light coming from the sky - tricky sometimes in gorge country. The walking photo is a bit blown out to the left as this was where the sun was coming up through the domes. I think the people walking give a good sense of size.

From Life Images by Jill

From Life Images by Jill

From Life Images by Jill

From Life Images by Jill

In this last one I liked the white sand, the red/orange backdrop and the simplistic view of the single rock and small green bush.

[SoxAddict]

Beautiful photos - stunning scenery. Very awe-inspiring.

[dmpete]

Great shots. I love God's architecture. Thanks for sharing, I may never be able to go there and this is a great way to experience a beautiful place.

[Jill H]

thanks. I hope to post more photos of the Kimberly (and Western Australia) as time goes on, so keep an eye out if you are interested. Thanks for messaging - I am only new to posting this week and I look forward to reading comments from other photographers.

[FoG]

Looks liek just the place to pobder life's meanings and challenges wow what a place thank you sharing these shame tehy are shown so small in an upload get a FLick rAccount !!! lol

[leonaashlee]

It's gorgeous and humungous....I can see how you would feel the need to be quiet and sit in solitude and quiet. Lovely.

[Jill H]

yeh - I have managed to connect to my picasa site so you can see the photos in the post. yeha! done it! this is much better!

[equilution]

Nice shots, Jill. I really like that you composed a person in the shots to give the walls some scale! Thanks for sharing.

Jim

[Jill H]

Thanks Jim. I used to get annoyed with people walking into my shots, or I used to wait around for people to move, but during this latest trip with the huge scale of the surroundings we were in, I was happier to include people to show the huge scale (my husband is a very patient model and is used to me now! lol ). I even included some random tourist in the red shirt walking through one of my pics - the red really stood out and the as you say the person gave a sense of scale.

[Upsadaisy]

Awesome photos, looks like a place for contemplation. Beautiful colors in all your pictures. Thanks for sharing them.