Tom Price - to - Karijini National Park, 26th May, 2022.

Left Tom Price about  8.00am and headed into the Karijini National Park. Another beautiful sunny day. First stop was to drive up to the Joffre Gorge Lookout. Didn’t walk down to the bottom of this one. Just admired it from the top looking down from the lookout stand. Unfortunately we couldn’t see any of the other sites such as Oxer Lookout, the lookout stands at the junction of Joffre Gorge, Weano, Red, and Hancock  gorges. Because they were all down gravel roads, which are too rough for us to travel on due to policy rules from Apollo. All of the above Gorges were all in the same area. This Park is the biggest park we will see and drive through in Western Australia, It’s massive. In fact it would be at least 100km from west to East. We went down two side shoots, one was about 30kms to the Joffre Gorge and one out to our camp 18kms away. We arrived at Dales camp site about midday had a bite to eat then took of on foot to explore this area which is towards the eastern end of the park. A really interesting camp, hard to explain but a huge area run by the National park trust. You have to book on line, pick your site and pay. No electricity just toilets, no showers but fortunately we are all self sufficient. The sites are so spread out and there are different named areas. Each area is a loop named road with sites off it. No grass just the natural growth but nicely set out into parking areas for each camper. Very different but quite fun. Very dark no lighting,feel you are in the middle of nowhere. Spooky, no radio, devices so no Blog. But it’s just for one Night.We are now in the Dales Gorge area. Spent the afternoon walking for about six kms across the rim of the gorge, stopping at the lookout areas. Then at one point took some steps down to the depths of the Gorge to Fortescue Falls. Lovely spot, could get out of the heat of the sun in the shade of the steep walls. Spent some time down there just watching people swimming in the big pond below the waterfall. Further along there was another area called Fern Pool but unfortunately this area has been closed due to maintenance. Ashame as this area is supposed to be very pretty and probably the most popular.

We have now arrived into the middle of the Karijini National Park. Our first branch off road is out to the Jaffre Gorge. Photo below.

This is the way down into this gorge. Looks a lot easier than yesterdays efforts scrambling over rocks. Unfortunately we didn’t really have the time to climb down. 

This is the view of Jaffre from the lookout. The people in the above photo are climbing down is to the right of this photo. They then walked/semi swam through the water in the foreground of the photo. Once they did that they went swimming in the pool. Not sure if I mentioned before re the colour of the water in the gorges. This is due to the week of rain they had before we arrived. As you would know it washes out of the red rock in these areas. But the tourists just love to just get in and do it.

Close up of the above pool. The lady on the edge of the pool has just gone through the narrow park across the small beach now she is just about to swim across the big pool.

Driven back out of the off shoot road and continuing through the park to the next side shoot road which will take us up to our camp site for the night.

Just some more of the scenery as we drive through. It’s all about the beautiful colours in these areas of Western Australia.

We have now settled into camp and just off to explore the Dales Gorge which is in walking distance from camp.  The first lookout was the above called circular Pool.There are several walks we had thought of, the full circle of walking along the two kms gorge floor then returning along the top rim of the gorge. After yesterdays big hike into the Hamersley Gorge we thought that it just might be too much. Therefore we just walked along the rim but did go to the bottom to one of the pools as you will see below.

Now we have come to The Three Ways Lookout where the gorge splits three ways as it shows below.

Although the gorge is full of trees you can just see from this angle the Y shape where the water would flow three ways. In the bottom of the picture the water comes along and splits two different ways. Can see it in the shape of the gorge edge at the top.

We have finished our two or three kms walk along the top rim of the gorge. So it’s now time to go down to the bottom to Fortescue Falls. By this time we were so hot it was nice to walk down in the shade of the side of the gorge.

This one has nice easy steps going down but going down you still think You have to get back up all these stairs. Just look at all this beautiful red rock. 

Nearly at the bottom but not quite. Not a lot of water flowing now, but would have been amazing a week ago when they had the heavy rain.

PT walking along these flash walkways and steps. Still going down

Looking down over the pool. Everyone walks down to the water over all those rocks. But fortunately they are like step shapes. 

We are now sitting at the top of all those rocks. This is as far as we went. Pretty exhaushting in this heat and as I said after yesterday muscles were really tiring. Note the reflections.

Now standing up a little higher trying to look down the waterfall, knowing if I lent over any further I would have gone down it head first. 😅

Getting braver but didn’t get much closer.

We are sitting at the top of the rocks watching everyone scrambling up and down the rocks.

PT was fascinated looking up at this piece of rock hanging out. Could see a man with a big nose.

Close up of the texture of the rock around the wall of the gorge. Really interesting. Great colours.

And more rock

Part of the walkway down.

Now back at camp and I looked out of the door and saw this dingo. He has been sleeping under the tree and was just getting up for a stretch. I kept my distance and I immediately got back inside.

This is our one night, no power, no showers, no lights outside, not contact to the outside world, therefore not data, and bush toilets, which I say were very clean and up market. Fortunately we had all our facilities on board. Red chip (iron ore) nicely laid out for your site  amongst natural bushy growth. The place was huge. Campers scattered and spread out through the park. It was worth staying here for one night as we could just walk from there to do all our exploring of the Dales Gorge.

Woke up next morning (today) to this sun rise coming up. All very peaceful. We got away at 7.00am.

Couldn’t get this blog posted last night as no data. We have now arrived in Port Hedland today 27th May, big driving day. Before we settled into our camp called, Discovery Bay Port Hedland, we had a look round the place. Especially watching all the big ships going out full of iron ore setting off to possibly China. As I am a day behind in my blogs  I will talk about Port Hedland in tomorrows nights blog.