Colours of Karijini

The colours are rich and contrasts are found in the sky, ranges, soil, rocks, gorge walls, pools, plants, birds, wildlife and time of day.

The Pilbara Region comprises largely of the Hamersley Ranges mined for their rich iron ore deposits, and the road to Karajini is a road train highway, along which we found 2 free camps on the way to Karajini NP. 324 km spread over 3 days is the speed we like to travel.

Time to move over....the tyres alone dwarf us

In The Rocks roadside camp..only 4 of us

Albert Tognolini roadside camp...great views

We woke up to this view

The car and van are lovely and clean...... before the corrugated dirt roads


The weather is brilliant, no flies, comfortable 28° for hiking, cool nights but not too cold, the pools in the gorges are cool but bearable, and clear sunny days.

KARAJINI NATIONAL PARK 

In Karajini east side we stayed at Dales Camp Ground (basic no power no water and plenty of red dirt, bush camping just how we like it!) to explore Dales Gorge, Fortesque Falls and Fern Pool....

the majority of hikes were down into the gorges and were either class 4 or 5 hikes, very steep, mostly natural rocky steps, some steep steel stairs, some thin ledges above water level, some we just had to wade through, but we were rewarded with great scenery and awesome pools and waterfalls to cool off in. Many have lost their lives or received bad injuries in the NP. Several gorges and pools were closed.

Dales Gorge.

We took a day trip to the far western side to Hamersley Gorge, it had by far the most scenic of rock formations and colours...however the whole NP was spectacular and amazing, it was our favourite

The undefined path down to the pools




Lower pool


Upper pool on way to spa pool


Spa pool, was difficult to negotiate, had to drag ourselves up over the water flowing out..enough room for about 5 in there at a time, hot water flowing in, this was well worth the swim to it

Then upped camp and moved to the western entrance of the NP staying at the Eco Retreat next to Joffre Gorge (exactly the same as Dales camp, but has hot showers, Eco tents, a restaurant and snacks, but our camp site still had no power, no water and plenty of red dirt) to visit famous Hancock Gorge with the ”spider” walk and Kermits pool and Weano Gorge

Joffre Gorge

From opposite side...these ladders were scary

Hancock Gorge walk/wade was slippery and challenging, it took all our concentration, plus the option of a swim or spider walk along the walls just to get to kermits pool, thank goodness we wore our reef shoes

After the steep decent, start of the scary walk

Yay, made it

Any further was a no go zone, sheer drop off over the edge 


Then we had to turn around and do it back again....looking back to the spider walk section, that was really hard to get back up where that chap is coming down (sorry, water on the phone protection case)

Wild flowers of winter are in bloom

We took a short hike up Mt Bruce (WA 2nd highest mountain) but stopped before it got to a class 5. With views over a mine.

Typical Hamerley Ranges scenery


Snappy Gum trees.....they are like a tree inside a tree

Little lizards dart across our path, and love to pose for photos

Birds of the week in the NP

Spinifex Dove and Varigated Fairy Wren

YAY, WE SURVIVED KARAJINI

Off to Tom Price (mining town) next to do washing, fill up with water (we can carry 230 litres on the van)....love our daily hot shower even though we are bush, restock fruit ‘n veg and fuel, then start heading towards the coast and Exmouth, for some snorkelling