The last major place we stopped on our trip was Karijini National Park. It took us a day of traveling to get there after Ningaloo, and we stayed for two nights. After Karijini there isn't much to write about- we spent 3 days traveling back down to Perth. Along the way we drove through some deserted towns. There was this town called Cue that was the strangest thing. Only about 150 people live there now, all spread out around the town. The town center is perfectly manicured and very pretty and old fashioned, but there is literally no one around. It was kind of creepy- it felt like we had stumbled upon a ghost town, where people had just disappeared into thin air. We also had an adventure going to a new spot that the tour guides hadn't been before. While trying to drive through a wide ditch, our tour bus got wedged in and we spent a while digging it out, building a bridge of rocks, and all the guys had to push it. It was quite the experience to be completely stranded hundreds of miles from anyone and having to get it out!
Back to Karijini- I actually had to do a 3,000 word report on it this week. Not fun, but it was interesting to work on researching a place I had actually been. Karijini was the most hardcore camping that we experienced. There were drop toilets, no showers, deep red dirt, and we had to wear socks and sneakers at all times because of snakes. We also had to keep an eye out for dingoes and the tour guides had to check the toilets for red back spiders (extremely venomous). It was also probably my favorite part of the trip. We got to hike down into the gorges, swim in pristine freshwater pool and sit in waterfalls, and saw some amazing stars at night so far away from everything else.
Karijini is in the Hamersley range, and the drive in was breathtaking. As you can see, it was also extremely bumpy.
After our first night in Karijini, we were able to hike down into the gorges. We split into two groups and for the first part of the day hiked down a steep, long path with my favorite tour guid Ray to visit Circular Pool (sacred to the 3 Aboriginal groups that have joint ownership of Karijini with WA) and Fortescue falls.
Ray with a termite mound.
Circular Pool from above.
The gorge.
Kimbra, Emily and I along the way.
Circular Pool
We didn't see any dingoes at our camp, but we did see one in Karijini after we were driving away, walking around off the side of the road.
After lunch, we headed out with Barry the tour guide to the Karijini visitor center, then to Fern Pool. Fern Pool was much bigger and you had to swim across to get under the waterfall. There were also rocks you could stand on. Apparently there were water pythons in the water, another thing I'm really glad I did not know at the time!
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