May 18 – May 20 Karijini National Park

Karijini has been one of the highlights of our trip so far. It is great to see trees and mountains, a welcome break from the miles and mles of scrub we have been driving through since Perth. The days are hot and the evenings freezing cold. Dingoes howl at night and roam the campsite. The red Pilbara dust pervades everything. Even the colour of the termite mounds have changed. The kids are all a lovely shade of reddish orange from top to toe. They look like a band of oompa loompahs.
We’ve explored some of the gorges which have all been breathtaking with refreshing swims and waterfalls to help clean off the dust. On our first morning we went for a walk with the Serisier gang down to the bottom of Dale Gorge. Clambering over the rocks and swimming in the pools gave the children a good work out and a wonderful sense of adventure. The 2 hour walk finished at Fortescue Falls where the kids clambered up the sides of the gorge to jump into the pool below. We had morning tea and sat in the sun next to the waterfall to watch all the crazy backpackers leaping off the sides of the gorge. Some I couldn’t bear to watch because they looked like a head injury waiting to happen.
The kids probably enjoyed the Weano and Hancock Gorges the most because there were some truly challenging bits that only the big kids could do. Tim lead the way down the waterfalls and ropes into the Handrail Pool in the Weano Gorge and then down the “spiderwalk” in the Hancock Gorge.
(Sammy here) My favourite gorge was the one with the spiderwalk where there was water rushing underneath you and there were two cliff faces on either side of you. You had to put your hands and feet on the wall and climb across the rock to the other side of the spider walk. There was a freezing cold pool at the end where there were really big rocks that we all jumped off.
On Tuesday we had a break from the gorges with visit to Tom Price to make phone calls, restock supplies and visit Rio Tinto’s iron ore mine. The mine is the reason why the town of Tom Price exists and is Australia’s largest high grade iron ore mine.
Heading out of Karijini on our way to Port Headland we drove through a valley of red Pilbara mountains (Mesa’s Kate tells me) which was a fitting farewell to a beautiful National Park.