CAMPSITE # 125 - Karijini National Park, Pilbara Region

9 months down, 3 to go! That's right, we're 3/4 of the way through the trip, and hasn't it flown! We have to keep reminding ourselves to make sure that we're making the very most of every day we have left because soon it will all be over!

From Exmouth, we travelled directly west into the Pilbara Region and through to Karijini National Park.  The colour of the landscape in Karijini is a remarkable red, iron-rich together with the contrast of the green bushland makes for some seriously spectacular views and even better photos! There are a number of gorges in the National Park with some incredibly refreshing (refreshingly cold at the moment!) freshwater swimming holes. 

This one was taken from the viewing point of Circular Pool, even though the angle points straight into the sun, you can see at the bottom some tiny little swimmers enjoying a dip...

Tom was quick to join them as soon as we got down there. But he was just as quick to get out as he was to get in!!

This is a banded iron formation, found all throughout the gorge which created some very handy stairs to get around on! 

As we were walking past this little disaster waiting to happen, Tom told me to run past it. I don't think people realise how dangerous it could possibly be and practically hanging on by a thread. After closer inspection (from 6 feet away) you can even see a really predominant fault line all of the way up... eeek!

The walk we did was apparently the hardest category of walks. It took about 2 hours in total but involved a lot of misshapen rocks as stairs and negotiating over slippery patches but we got there in the end. This photo is looking straight at Fortescue Falls. We raced up the final leg, the cliffline stairwell all of the way to the top. Hay Caramba! That certainly took the wind out of my sails!


And this is from the top of Fortescue Falls looking back down. Puts it all into perspective...

Site : Karijini National Park, Dales Camping Ground

Rating : 7 / 20

Facilities : $14 per night for unpowered site. Drop dunnies but very well maintained. Can't have fires. Dales is in walking distance to gorge & swimming hole. Great outlook from campsite.