How to Bungle a Kimberley tour

By Greg Hackett

It was the first day of an 11-day coach tour of the Kimberley, from Darwin to Broome, and our first stop was the beautiful Katherine River Gorge.

As our escorted group walked towards a bend in the river, known in indigenous folklore as the “Rainbow Serpent’s resting place”, I noticed a snake lazing on the rocks below … what a perfect photo opportunity for my travel story.

So I quietly left the group and tour director, and jumped down from a ledge, only about half a metre, to get a better angle. Excruciating pain shot through my right leg! I had landed awkwardly on a slight slope, and in typical tourist fashion I was stupidly wearing thongs rather than walking shoes. Grimacing, I snapped the pic and gingerly hopped back to the tour group.

As I sat, nursing my injured leg, my companion decided not to nurse my feelings as she pointed out that “you’re not 20 any more, but you will go jumping out of planes, diving with great whites, spearfishing – just for a travel story”, and told me to stop being a sook. She was entirely correct.

Even though I have a high pain threshold, instinct told me I had damaged something, so I stayed off my right leg as the knee rapidly ballooned with swelling. I was extremely fortunate that the retired head of nursing and the retired head of radiology at Royal Adelaide Hospital were on this tour, and they ordered me to put no weight on my right leg, and that a hospital visit was essential.

The tour director was very concerned and wanted to fly me back to Darwin hospital, but my heart was set on doing a walking tour of the spectacular Bungle Bungle Ranges (Purnululu) in the next day or so, and I insisted it was just a sprain, and to please pass me another chilled sav blanc. So, at every sightseeing stop for two days, I sat in the cool air-con coach, comfy in two seats and with my leg resting on extra pillows, as I took pics through the window. My fellow travellers, all sincerely lamenting my misfortune, did have a look of envy as they sweated in 40-plus degrees outside. Being a coach tour, there were quite a few retirees on board, who had no shortage of painkillers in their medicine bags.   

We arrived in Kununurra, and I conceded defeat – I would be silly to try and walk through the Bungle Bungles. So our tour director generously replaced that optional extra with a morning flight over the ranges in a light plane. The sight was incredible: the large, beehive-shaped, striped sandstone pillars of the Bungle Bungles; a bird’s eye view of the open cut Argyle Diamond Mine; the mind-blowing immensity of man-made Lake Argyle and Ord River irrigation scheme.

Then I was brought back to earth, as I hopped along to Kununurra hospital, where I told the young resident doctor that I thought I may have broken my leg, it hurt so much. He scoffed at that – “you wouldn’t have lasted this long mate, if it were broken” – and sent me to X-ray. Sure enough, there was a break behind my kneecap - “fracture of the tibial plateau” was the medical term. Next came phone calls to my GP in Melbourne, who booked me in to see an orthopaedic surgeon – who was away at a “conference” in Bali for another three days. Again, our tour director wanted to immediately fly me to Melbourne, but, longing to see Cable Beach at Broome, I insisted on finishing the trip (and story); besides, these days a convenient, removable brace replaces plaster on a broken leg so I had some mobility.

Ten days after the incident and back in Melbourne, the orthopaedic surgeon was dismayed that I had delayed for so long. His initial prognosis that I would need major surgery and a bone graft, and would never regain full knee functionality, fortunately proved unfounded – thanks entirely to the initial good advice of the retired medical experts on the tour, I had not worsened the break.

However, I needed an operation to insert two screws in my leg; there were some complications during the operation and extra holes were drilled, so recovery in hospital took longer; one screw proved a nuisance as its tip protruded through the bone (very painful), which meant more surgery months later to remove the screws (usually they are best left in place).

In all, it was many months of pain, two operations under general anaesthetic, and a long recovery with a cumbersome leg brace. So, always listen to your tour director’s advice, don’t leave the group, always wear suitable shoes (and clothes), and have adequate travel insurance because you never know when expensive medical transport may be required.

Oh, and the cause of it all – the pic of the little snake, was blurred and unpublishable. Grrrr.