Karijini NP day 2

We went back the next day and we spent a slightly longer time at the Dales Gorge side of the park.  There was only the one gorge to explore here but the circumstances were more inviting with two wonderful opportunities for a refreshing and cleansing swim.  The road to Dales Gorge is all bitumen which made the journey all the more pleasant.

These are walkers along the bottom of Dales Gorge, past Fortescue Falls.

The pool below Fortescue Falls is at one end of Dales Gorge.  It is a wonderful swimming area.

Circular Pool is at the other end of Dales Gorge. The path to it is closed for the time being due to fallen rocks.

Dales Gorge is a wider gorge than most of the others with a long trail with shallow water.

Fern Pool is about 400m further above Fortescue Falls.  It too is a wonderful pool for a cooling swim.  We both had one. When you travel in remote parts with the distinctive red Pilbara soil staining all parts of your body you take any swim you can get :-)

The visit to Karijini NP has been the highlight of this trip.  It is my second favourite spot in Australia, with first being the Mitchell Falls, also in WA.  I wanted to visit Karijini one more time and I am very happy that we were able to spend two days here.

Karijini National Park - one of the jewels in WA's crown

Karijini NP is Western Australia's second largest NP (first place goes to the former Rudall River NP now Karlamilyi NP) encompassing some 627, 441 hectares.  But much of the southern half of the park is inaccessible.  Visitors concentrate on the rugged, spectacular gorges in the north with rock pools, waterfalls and precipitous rock faces.  There are lookouts and walking trails and the trails are graded in degrees from 2-5 classes of difficulty.

Oxer Lookout provided breathtaking views over Hancock Gorge.

We walked together part of the way into Weano Gorge which is one degree of difficulty less than Hancock Gorge but the part where the water was too high to walk through safely for me stopped us going all the way and reaching Handrail Pool.

We enjoyed walking along Weano Gorge and the views of the banded iron rock formations that tower above one down in the narrow valley where you are walking.

The next lookout was over Joffre Gorge which is a very narrow gorge with water at the bottom which almost all the gorges have.  It is a very steep descent to the bottom and when we sat the gorge we both realised that when we were here ten years ago I stopped halfway down and sat on the ledge while Andrew descended to the bottom.

Hancock Gorge was one that Andrew did on his own while I stayed on the rim.  This gorge provides the highest degree of difficulty and Andrew did the walk down to the gorge on his own leaving me at the top.  A young woman tripped at the end of the gorge and broke her angle and was apparently screaming in agony with the pain.  She was taken out on a stretcher but not until the late afternoon whereas the accident happened mid morning.

Kermit's Pool at the end of the gorge.

This is where Andrew and some others were helping the woman with the broken ankle.








We spent all morning at the NP and drove out in the afternoon to stay overnight out of the park.  We can't camp overnight as we have the dog.  As it was, Maxi had to be locked in for the duration while we explored and half a day was as much as we could expect a dog to be confined even with the windows open.

Unfortunately we were not able to go to two other favourite spots in the Pilbara - Hamersley Gorge and Millstream NP as the road to both are unpaved. Winnie, our motor home can only cope with a fairly limited amount of corrugated, gravel roads. The drive to the three gorges on the north/west side of Karjini NP involved 13 kms of gravel which was as much as we felt we were able to do.  Poor Winnie was shaken about a lot and the trip took 3/4 hour each way.  But the three spectacular gorges, Weano, Hancock and Joffre were well worth the rough ride.

Cheela Plains Station, Pilbara

170 kms east of the Nanturra Roadhouse and 90 kms west of Paraburdoo is our next stopover at Cheela Plains.  This station provides the perfect break in the journey between the two World Heritage listed areas of Ningaloo Reef anf Karijini National Park.  Cheela Plains is a working cattle station in the heart of the Pilbara looking over the rugged ranges that are typical of the area.

They offer a 4x4 wd gorge tour of the Beasley Gorge which is part of the property on the other side of the NW Coastal Highway.  But following advice that the 12 or so km dirt road into the gorge was OK for the motor home, we drove ourselves there and spent a large part of the morning exploring it.

The most spectacular sight in the Beasley Gorge is Perentie Fall.  It is a tall, smooth, rounded rock face with a small pool at the base.  One can imagine in the wet season the water cascading down the rock face to form a much deeper pool than the one here in the photo.

The Wall is another location which would be spectacular after rain. There is a 50m drop down a vertical wall to the pool shown.





After exploring some of the gorge we went back to the other side of the highway and turned onto another dirt track, unmarked, and still part of the property to come to an inland oasis called Munderie Spring.

This delightful large lake, filled by the spring provided a wonderful shady spot to bathe and sit quietly.  No tourist apart from those staying at Cheela Plains know about this wonderful place.

WA is full of areas resplendent with azure blue seas, towering cliffs and rugged ranges.  But these amazing inland oases like Munderie Springs simply take your breath away.  You do not expect to find a place where you can sit by a large pool of water visited by water birds and very few people, in the midst of such harsh, yet beautiful terrain and landscape with red earth as far as the eye can see.  Overall, the sheer scale of the landscape in WA makes you appreciate the majesty of this place.  It is quite magical.

Northwest Cape of WA - Charles Knife Gorge

This area is better known as the Ningaloo Coast World Heritage area.  We came only for the morning, especially to visit the Charles Knife Gorge which is siutated at the beginning of the Cape Range National Park.  We drove up the gorge road and took some photos while Andrew went for a reasonably short walk while Maxi and I stayed in lockdown (again).

A panorama shot of part if the canyon.

I am doing this blog some 130 kms further along the Northwest Coastal Highway at Barradale Rest area on the Yannarie River creekbed where we stopped for the night.  It is the biggest rest area I have seen and is a very pleasant pleasant area with a toilet.  Not only that but we get three bar reception here.  I am tempted to ring a bridge partner and have a game on Stepbridge but after doing the blog, I have too much reading to catch up on so I will pass on the bridge.  But we decided to stay an extra day and night.  With such vast areas to cover and so much driving, Andrew deserves a longer break and it is really pleasant and relaxing here.

Andrew relaxing at the rest area.

Some beautiful rock formations along the way.

The spinifex along the side of the road.

This captures how this plant manages to take root in the most inhospitable soil.

Bullara Station

Bullara Station has been highly recommended by several campers and we arrived today for a couple of days stay. The station is large and situated 80 kms south of Exmouth and 60 kms north of Coral Bay.  It is possible to travel to both destinations for the day while actually staying at Bullara.  Both Exmouth and Coral Bay are booked out while Bullara has plenty of room.

These two sheep sitting on either side of the road as you come on to property, looked like gate posts.

The place of full of whimsy and funky artwork.  Here is a bottle tree.

The toilets and showers are all works of art.

Many of the outside showers are configured in different ways.

This one employs a bucket with drainholes as a showerhead.

The wood-fired donkey warms the water.  Hot showers are only available between certain hours when the donkey is lit.  There are more conventional gas fired showers available which provide hot showers all day long but they are certainly less fun.

An imaginative campfire spot.  Once again, there are more conventional ones around which are less picturesque.

Between 8:30am and 12:00pm barrista-made coffee and scones with raspberry jam and cream are available served on the terrace at the homestead.

Here we are relaxing with the said goodies but only Andrew is indulging in the scones :-)

One last shot of some farm implement at the back of the old woolsheds.

It was a very nice stay at Bullara Station, and like other people, we highly recommend it.  Quite a decent camp kitchen too and the atmosphere with people cooking, eating and washing up together is a nice congenial feeling in the evening.