Western Australia Road Trip – Karijini National Park
So! Off we set for Karijini National Park, fully stocked up on food and drinks, a little weary from a long couple of days driving but raring to go. We arrived at the park around 10.30am and as we got out of the van to pay our visitors fee we noticed just how alone we were, with the warm breeze rustling through the grass the only sound to be heard – there was literally no one and nothing around for miles and miles… It was pretty great!
We collected some information from the visitors centre about 20k’s later and by lunch time we were on our way to our first gorge. I think they send everyone to Dales gorge first – its the only one accessible by sealed roads, lulling you into a false sense of security of the driving conditions! This first three photo’s are from said gorge. Fern pool (pictured third) is a nice little swimming hole about 5 minutes walk past the waterfall you can see in the first picture below.
By early afternoon we started to hear the first sounds of thunder from not too far away, so we headed for our planned camp site. 50k’s of corregated, pot-holed and down-right bumpy dirt road later and we arrived, just in time for the rain to start – which had us camped in for the rest of the day. We did try to head out again when we thought the storm was clearing but got half-way to where we were
going and realised we were driving straight back into the heart of it… So we took an early night ready for a nice early rise the next day.
Sunrise at our camp site in Karijini
After an early breakfast we drove to Kalamina gorge which was advertised as one of the more “pleasant” walks in the area. We weren’t disappointed. A gentle stroll through the gorge traversing some small waterfalls, bushland and rocks (just enough to make it fun!) awaited us and we thoroughly enjoyed spending a couple of hours there. The feeling of isolation (we didn’t see another person the entire walk) really added to the experience. Just us and the landscape that waited millions of years for us to come along.
After Kalamina we drove around a few different view points to take in as much as we could in our short time before going for another walk in Weano gorge.
By late afternoon the light was really starting to work its magic on the landscape so we took a few shots at a rest area whilst we waited for sunset.
By the end of our second day we decided we would head off straight to Exmouth the next day. Our original plan had us staying 3 nights, plus one night in Tom Price which is a couple of hours away, but we figured we were happy with all the gorge walking we’d done and it turns out Tom Price doesn’t really have much going for it so we threw a couple of nights in the bank and hit the road again.
