Karijini was a ‘side trip’ from
the WA coast. Must say we’ve not heard a
lot about the Karijini but Stephen had it on his ‘must do’ list.
After being evacuated from Cape
Range in Exmouth (big prawn pic only one we got in Exmouth) due to Tropical Cyclone Quang we headed inland. Leaving at 8am in the morning we arrived
after many hours of fighting huge winds and a heap of rain at a free camp spot
on the Nanutarra-Paraburdoo Road. We really
weren’t that far away from Exmouth but we arrived at 4pm, tired and really fed
up of the noise of pounding rain on the car roof.
A fairly quiet night with not too
much rain left us rested and ready to go further.
We drove through Paraburdoo, with
all the houses going up in number, no matter what street they were on. An interesting phenomenon we city folk
haven’t come across before ;-)
And on to Tom Price, wow Coles is
huge, is that sad I notice these things now.
Reasonably priced food is quite sought after in our life these
days. I do not like paying $15 for a
small block of cheese. Grrrrrr
A lovely lady knocked on our
caravan door at Tom Price and introduced herself and her children, they had
seen us along the way and wanted to say ‘Hi’.
Jada mentioned the Karijini Eco Retreat sounded great so we decided to
pop out there for a few nights. It was
in a great spot for the Weano Gorge (our favourite) and right on the Joffre
Gorge. Weano Gorge – loved it. Our first
trail we took was to Handrail Pool – it was an intriguing name and one I really
hoped would have been chosen due to an unusual natural phenomenon – it wasn’t –
it had a metal handrail into the pool, or else you wouldn’t be getting back out
of the pool. Lol – it was amazing. We had an absolute BALL going through the
gorge, walls so close to you, you were able to hold onto both sides whilst
walking through the stream, walls so high you could only see the top and the
blue skies shining down on you.
The next day brought a new
adventure to Kermits pool.
If we had thought we had had an
incredible adventure the day before we had an even better one this day. Even more stunning cliffs, more stunning
pools, more stunning views. A walk
through pools and gorges brings you to a natural amphitheatre with
waterfall. Then we headed on down
through a small gorge to Kermits pool where the boys all had a go at ‘bombies’
in the deep water. This will truly be a
day to remember, we loved this spot.
After popping back into Tom Price
for a couple of things and a water top up we headed off to Dales Campground in
the Dales Gorge area. Camp ground hosts
are in residence at present, so we were lucky enough to be assigned a spot and
advised of all of the rules and regulations of the camp spot.
We took off for a walk the next
day to Fern Pool, Fortescue Falls, Dales Gorge and Circular Pool. Fern pool is quite beautiful with a great
deck and fish that nibble your toes (we had to pay for that in Thailand).
Fortescue Falls weren’t huge as there wasn’t a lot of water running but they
were still quite beautiful.
It took us some time to walk
through Dales Gorge, sighting lizards, butterflies and snakes on the way to
Circular Pool. The pool was quite
spectacular but for some reason we all didn’t like it – it felt sad somehow –
isn’t it funny how you get feelings from areas.
Fern Pool was the opposite – a very serene place.
So after many, many, many steps
back up the gorge wall we went for a walk back to the campground.
When we first arrived at the
campground I picked up a couple of work booklets for the boys, they finished
them a couple of days later and so we took them to the camp ground hosts and
the boys received their Karijini Junior Ranger badges. What an exciting time! All sewed onto their
caps and they’re ready to go.
Its been really nice hanging out
at Dales Campground for a week, although we are travelling around its still
constant and can be quite tiring (does that sound pathetic, yeah well it is) so
its nice to make camp for a week to settle in and get into a bit of a routine.
