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!

Gorgeous Gorges - Day 1 at Karijini National Park

Wow. Western Australia is just absolutely stunning! This national park was our first experience of a ‘gorge’ and we were all super impressed. I am STILL so impressed that I have had an incredibly difficult time narrowing down the images to put in this blog entry. I have 57 at last count! Eek. Have decided that since it is too hard to narrow down, I shall simply write multiple entries and spread my 57 photos over a number of days. Come back in a few days if you are bored…

So we got to Karijini and set ourselves up in Dales Campground. We arrived at about 1pm and missed out on a spot in the ‘generator’ side, much to the disgust of the woman in front of me in the queue. She was NOT pleased. We didn’t mind a bit! There are about 4 ‘loops’ that don’t allow generators and only 1 that does, so if you want to be noisy, get in extra early! We squeezed into the last spot that would fit us (usually given to 2 caravaners travelling in pairs) and made our way down to Circular Pool. It was our first experience IN a gorge and was simply breathtaking! The children LOVED the hikes – who would have guessed??! Not a single sign of Whingey or Whiney the entire time we were there. They liked the more challenging aspects of the level 3 and 4 hikes – climbing over boulders and using ladders and a bit of rock climbing and stepping stones.

We made our way to the closest pool (Circular Pool) via the hardest decent track. Channeling our inner mountain goat, we clambered down and took our time wandering along the bottom of the stunning gorge. The kids had a bit of a splash and a swim and Dunc and I took some photos and then I ran into an incredibly negative, scripture-quoting, bushwalking expert couple who got me all second-guessing myself and worried. Of COURSE I wouldn’t have a map of my own, would I? (Yes, a photo of the only one at the visitors centre on my phone). Its FAR too late to be considering walking the other side of the gorge, it will be getting dark soon. And of COURSE I wouldn’t be prepared enough to have a torch with me, would I. (Why yes, again on my phone) And having such young children it will take us a lot longer to get back, well really we should be thinking about leaving right now!

Sadly I took too much of what they said on board and started getting worried. Lexie was still on the other side of the pool in the waterfall and we ended up heading off a good 30 minutes after this couple, with me feeling uneasy and a sense of pressure about the time. It was 4pm and the sun sets at 6pm here (“But, of COURSE, you lose the light a lot earlier in the gorges!”).

Well pffft to this couple! We caught up to them before we even got to the wall scramble up to the top. Halfway up we stopped for a ‘lolly snake/bribery rest’ and they overtook us. Then they had the hide to boast about beating us at the top! WTF? They left half an hour before us and we weren’t aware it was a race to leave this beautiful environment. I was very glad to see the back of them.

This short hike was a GREAT introduction to what was in store over the next few days, and I got to reflect on the fact that everyone else we have met has always been so friendly and positive. The dark helps you to see the light.

Catching up with Tom and Jerry.

Ahh… that would be the town of Tom Price, and our mate Jerry from home. From Exmouth we left the coast and headed inland – East for the first time in a loooooong time, which made for a lovely afternoon drive with no sun shining in our eyes. We had been told by so many people that there is really not much worth seeing along the coast road from Exmouth to Port Headland, and that cutting in to see Karajini NP is a much better drive. We sooooo agree! AND we got to catch up with a very good friend of ours who works FIFO in the mining town of Tom Price, right on the edge of Karajini. Win win! The drive from Exmouth to Tom Price is about 650km so we cut that in half with a free camp along the way. We were thinking of staying at Nanatarra Roadhouse, which is apparently lovely and VERY reasonably priced (our friends stayed there) but Dunc felt happy to drive further and I wanted to save a few $$ and Bertha was fully charged and a free camp it was. There are any number of roadside stops, but a we made it to a lovely camp called ‘House Creek’ which is well off the road and tucked in under the trees. Just gorgeous! Dunc sweet-talked our way into squeezing Bertha behind all the caravans already there. I’m not sure it was a site, as such, more like the access road, but everyone was parked facing the other way and it worked out perfectly in the end.

We arrived in the town of Tom Price early enough to get settled, go shopping and check out the Visitor’s Centre, where we had to be by 8.30am the next morning. Jerry and Katie had organized a mine tour for us all. Lucky us, as they are dependent on numbers and this was the only confirmed tour for some time! The Coles supermarket in town shares its freight with Rio Tinto, so the prices are the same as in Melbourne. After the prices in Exmouth, this was WONDERFUL! Other friends are travelling about 10 days ahead of us and thanks to Facebook, I am getting a heads-up on all the cool things to do – including save money on groceries. LOL.

Jerry works incredibly long hours, but we were lucky enough to have him to dinner both nights we were there. It was so lovely to see someone from home and for Dunc and I to have some ‘proper’ conversations. We have a LOT of conversations with the children, and a lot of ‘travel talk’ with the lovely Grey Nomads we meet, but its all light and fluffy and it was lovely to spend time with a friend ‘our age’. And it was nice to have a little touch of ‘our old home’. We did miss Katie and the children though. It was a bit funny to have only one member of the family to dinner. And usually it is the opposite way – we would have Katie and the children when Jerry was away at work. But it was a lovely and well-timed touch of home.

Our tour of the open cut mine at Tom Price was wonderful. The town and a mountain are named after the American man who was instrumental in finding the ore and lobbying the govt. to be able to mine here. Ironically, half the mountain is gone now – mined away. We were picked up by coach and driven through the mine site, so we could see the massive machinery at work. The mid-point of the tour was a large lookout over one of the enormous open-cut pits. The vehicles that are required are tremendously HUGE and the roads likewise. My favourite vehicle was the incredibly manoeuvrable one with a bulldozer blade at the front. They are responsible for keeping the roadways and just trundle along tidying things up as they go. (Can you tell I’ve forgotten the name of it? Someone will tell me soon, I’m sure!)

After the tour we headed off to find the 4WD track to the top of 'Mount Nameless', the highest peak in the area. It’s only still there to hold the antennas and phone communications up. Otherwise, it also would have been mined away by now! The view from the top was amazing, and Dunc very much enjoyed the 4WD challenge – though it was nothing compared to Steep Point.

We had Jerry over for dinner a second time. Dunc cooked his delicious ‘roo burgers’ as we get the meat from Coles. Once he constructs a ‘hamburger the lot’ around the kangaroo meat, you really can’t taste any difference from a normal burger. It’s apparently a leaner, healthier meat so we have them a fair bit.

We stayed at the Tom Price Tourist Park and I was overjoyed to see that they had a children’s section in their bookswap! In all our travels, this is the first one I have found to do so. Lexie and I swapped some books and we were on our way once more.