Karijini National Park

Karijini NP is the 2^nd largest NP in Western Australia, situated 325km from Port Hedland in the Hamersley Range at the heart of the Pilbara. The rocks that make up the spectacular landscape, with more than a dozen stunning gorges and waterfalls, are amongst the oldest on Earth, over 2,000 million (2 billion) years old. Erosion and rapid river flows created the gorges and compression of iron and silica rich sediment has sculptured the geological rock formations we see today.

We explored Port Hedland during Friday, including learning about the turtles that hatch locally as well as more on the critical iron ore industry (which gives the whole town a red dusty layer, which I imagine must be unpleasant when the wind blows!), saw evidence of the long trains and boats that transport the minerals, visited the impressive Seafarers’ Centre, ate dinner at the Yacht Club but our second evening was cloudy and therefore the Stairway to the Moon did not appear, so we were lucky to have seen a perfect one on Thursday.

More evidence of local industry in action was to be seen on the Great Northern Highway on the way to Karijini NP, when we passed countless 4 truck “road trains”, this being the longest:

 We had left early on Saturday to drive to Karijini NP and stay 2 nights in an eco-tent, located in their Eco Retreat village. Here is the tent and the view from inside:

This gave us the opportunity to explore Dales Gorge in the afternoon, followed by Weano, Kalamina and Knox gorges on Sunday. The surprise was not how spectacular everything we saw is, including walking down into and along three of these gorges, it was the un-seasonally cold and partly wet weather, which stopped us exploring other gorges – we had expected to be scorching hot, especially sleeping in a tent during their dry season. An unexpected bonus was the superb dinners we had each evening and meeting various travellers from different parts of Europe and Australia.

When we woke this morning, the blue sky and sun had returned, so before leaving we walked to Joffre gorge, closest to the Eco Retreat, and saw how the sun brought out the rock colours better. Words and even photos cannot do proper justice to the sights we witnessed in Karijini NP, but suffice it to say that it more than exceeded our high expectations and we would recommend highly. Here are a few examples:

 

 

 





On our way to Tom Price today, a mining town 50km from the park exit and also the highest town in Western Australia, we followed a camera sign off the road assuming we would get a good shot of the surrounding Hamersley Range mountains, only to find a secluded car park with numerous messages on rocks and other materials for loved ones who had died. We were trying to understand the significance when fortunately a Ute arrived with 2 Aussies who explained that it was the Miners’ Sorrow, a multiple shrine for miners and relatives, some killed tragically in accidents, who “watch over us”. It was a moving experience.

Throughout our drives through the Kimberley and Pilbara regions we have seen literally thousands of termite mounds of all shapes and sizes. Here is an example of a large one: