Thursday 24th June - Karijini National Park

It’s official, Karijini has the worst roads we’ve yet encountered in Australia.  I don’t know if it’s a deliberate ploy in order to keep visitor numbers down, or whether the grader operator has yet to read the machine’s instruction manual, but after 250km of corrugations we were glad to see that they’ve laid bitumen for the 15km from the visitor’s centre to Dales Gorge.  It was also a bonus to be able to have a shower at the visitor’s centre this afternoon, so we are both feeling slightly less covered in red dust.

Hamersley Gorge has been our favourite so far as swimming in the crystal clear waters was fantastic, but Kalamina Gorge comes a close second. SPOT  The waterfall was pretty, but it was the walk to Rock Arch Pool that was the main attraction.  We followed the stream at the base of the gorge as it winds its way over faulted, but smooth, rocks, with sheer red walls to either side and rock pools around every corner.

We ate our picnic in sight of the rock arch with no one else disturbing us - definitely what we came to Australia for.

We also made it around Joffre SPOT and Knox Gorges today (although we didn’t walk down the latter), where there have been surprisingly few people about.  I’m not sure we’ll be as lucky tomorrow as we’re going to the most accessible and popular gorges so may have to contend with a few more tourists.

We’re not sure who produced the information guide, but they obviously didn’t talk to the people who put up the signs and guide boards as distances and times for walks varied depending on which source you used.  This made it difficult to plan, with some 3 hour walks only taking an hour, and you sometimes didn’t know if the actual distance was going to be 1, 2 or 3km.  But the scenery generally made up for any ineptness on the part of the park authority - probably what they rely on!

We’ve had to head into an official national park campsite tonight, but it’s actually very pleasant with your own shaded bay and plenty of space between you and your neighbour.  We even get an en-suite (well, the long drop is nearby).  We’ve been warned not to leave any food or our shoes out as dingoes are around and apparently like to keep their feet warm.  We’re not sure if somebody was pulling our leg about the shoes, but we’ll probably stick our sandals in the van just in case. SPOT