Pristine Pools – Day 2 at Karijini National Park

Angus and I started our second day at Karijini with our usual early morning together. He decided to knock over some ‘schoolwork’. Karijini have a brilliant Junior Ranger program, which is a booklet full of activities. They have a minimum amount to complete based on age, and if they do so, and swear an oath, they get a Junior Ranger patch. It’s really cool and incredibly educational so I have negotiated a day off schooling in lieu of completing the entire book.

Once Sleepy and Snoozey awoke, we decided to head over to the other side of the National Park for the day. Check out the red Pilbara dust over the white beach sand on Baby Bertha. Probably should giver her a wash at some stage… We stopped past the visitors centre for an hour or so – they are always so very interesting. The children loved a little explorer’s kit they sold there, and negotiated to pay half in order to get one each. They come with a drink bottle, torch, binoculars, compass, pocket-knife and extra pouches for other exciting necessities. They are so cool, that Dunc and I didn’t mind pitching in $12 each to buy one.

We headed down the 35km of unmade and corrugated road to Weano Gorge, where there were two hikes we wanted to do. They were marked as Level 5 trails, and we had done a level 4 trail the day before, so were looking forward to the extra challenge. We started with the shorter hike to Handrail Pool. Wow. “Some wading required”. I interpreted that as being required to walk through knee-deep water. Apparently the army definition of wading is “if you can take off your clothes and hold them above your head to keep dry and not have to swim”. Yeah. They went with the army definition! We were blissfully unaware of this and got to the first wet bit with our iPhones in our pockets and backpack and camera gear with us. That bit was ‘only’ as deep as 2cm under my back (iPhone) pocket. Eek. Fortunately that was as deep as that trail got, but we did not know that and I was a little anxious about what might lay ahead.

The trail might not have had any more deep water wading, but it was certainly difficult! Rock climbing, clambering, rock hopping – it was a challenge. But SOOO worth it. The gorge was just stunning and all 4 of us were thoroughly enjoying ourselves. The final decent into Handrail Pool was through a tight little chasm which we had to ‘spiderwalk’ through, and then a steep climb down with the use of a handrail – hence the name! It was well worth the effort! Stunning and beautiful and so remote. 

We stopped for a break and a snack and for Lexie to have a swim. We fully expected her to get to ankle deep and pull out, but unfortunately she stepped on some algae, slipped over, slid in and was fully submerged before she knew what hit her! She looked horribly shocked from the cold, and a lovely passing man helped haul her out over the slippery rocks so she was only in for less than a minute. She still looked a little shell-shocked and was complaining that her baby finger hurt, so I had a quick look at it. It was HORRIBLE. The section closest to her hand went straight, but then the last 2 sections stuck out at a funny angle. She could move it okay so I figured it wasn’t broken, but it looked horribly dislocated. Dunc and I had one of those parent ESP moments across the pool – he gave me one raised eyebrow – I gave him the slightest shake of the head back – and he was on his way back to us. Clambering and rock climbing because he had gotten himself over to a rather challenging spot.

When Dunc arrived, he looked at the finger and didn’t see anything wrong with it! It was still sticking out at the silly angle and I was so confused – why couldn’t he see how damaged it was?! He got her to put her okay hand alongside the damaged one, and BOTH her baby fingers do the same thing! And so do his!?!? What sort of STUPID fingers do my family have?!? So here I was, having visions of x-rays at Tom Price, and all along she’s just given it a bit of a bash. I told this story last night to a nurse, who looked at Lexie’s finger before the punchline and told me it was dislocated. She was amazed I hadn’t had it seen to. LOL. She was just as freaked when she saw their fingers – so glad its not just me! Angus has my ‘normal’ fingers so at least one child is okay. :P

Whilst her finger wasn’t dislocated, it was still incredibly sore and Lexie had to use her hands rather a lot to get back up the trail. Holding on to the handrail, and lots of gripping rockwalls to inch along ledges to get back. We strapped the finger to the next one, dosed her up with a panadol and thanked our lucky stars that Lexie reminded us to bring the first aid kit along. We decided that tackling the harder trail to Kermit’s Pool would be too much for her right now and decided to call it a day. I have since heard that Kermit’s Pool has chest deep wading, so I am rather glad we called it quits.

We drove back via the ‘long way’. We took the western access road of the park to the highway and drove along the tarmac to the eastern access road. This way we avoided the 35km of corrugations. They are laying tarmac along the western road right now, as that is the road to the fancy resort, so soon all of Karijini will be very accessible. Even though we only walked half the distance we intended to, we were very glad to get home and put our feet up after our day!