Gorges and Swimming Holes

  Karijini National Park, Western Australia, Australia
Thursday, October 23, 2008

Gorge wall

The Pilbara region of Western Australia is rich in natural resources such as iron ore and salt and is thus heavily mined, and home to soulless, industrial towns such as Port Hedland, where we halted for John to attempt to solve a car problem. And yet, just down the road (well, 850 km, to be precise, but that's a mere joyride in Aus terms) is the rugged, rocky wonderland of Karijini National Park, sliced through with deep gorges and decorated with waterfalls and enticing swimming holes. And just for effect, the mountains were illuminated by rapid forks of lightning in the evening skies as we approached

Walking up Mount Nameless

The colours of this park took me totally by surprise: where the Kimberley was a dramatic oil painting, the Pilbara is more a gentle watercolour, the rough red rocks still forming the backdrop but the colours diluted with the pale green of the hummocks of spinifex grass which cover the mountain slopes. Yet the softness with which this greenery enfolds the landscape gives way at the gorges, where 100 metre-high rock walls plunge down from the harsh sunlight to shady depths in which cold water flows year-round. 

Along Dales Gorge

Pool at Fortesque Falls

The not-too enthusiastic woman in Port Hedland visitor centre had said that many people are just 'gorged out' after the Kimberley and aren't so impressed with Karijini. Gorged out? No way! I still had a hearty appetite for more and anyway the vantage point here is totally different: we had approached the previous gorges from river level to walk through them, while here we looked down from the cliff tops as the earth opened up beneath us, and then climbed right down to water level. The rock formations were astounding: strata of burnt orange, rusty brown and charcoal, each

Wading theough Hancock Gorge

Where four gorges meet

layer jaggedly jutting out to form thousands of tiny platforms, while in places the rushing water  which carved these chasms has left them with smooth, rounded edges and in other spots the effect is of swirling multi-flavour ice cream. Fortescue and Circular Pool offered deliciously cold water for swimming or soaking tired feet, while Hancock and Weano Gorges required a descent , followed by a bouldery walk and gradually the twisting gorge walls narrowed, at times being little more than body width, while underfoot changed from a trickle

Hammersley Gorge

Red rock wall

of water to wading depth. To complete the entire route of these gorges necessitates climbing and abseiling gear and experience, but we made it as far as the unimaginatively named Handrail Pool at Weano, access for which is via a handrail down a short but steep slope of slippery rock in running water, followed by another short but sheer decent, holding onto a rope - it looked more hairy than it actually was and the reward was a swim in the cold water with the blue sky visible above, but just sheer rockfaces all around. 

Very tame lizard!

My only complaint was that the lizards of the area were too tiny... and then we camped just outside the park, in Tom Price, to make an early start hiking up Mount Nameless the following morning... and I met a beautiful, delicate and very tame lizard on a branch as I descended, followed by a very large specimen back in the campground, digging in the soil for grubs... it was fascinating to catch such a lengthy display of lizard behaviour! And as we drove towards Exmouth that afternoon John spotted a huge one crossing the road, who rose up and hissed in defence as I approached. They're not all tiny round here then!

Klaus and his camel

There was one more unexpected encounter that evening as we drove on - Klaus the camel man was parked at the side of the road. We had read a newspaper article about how he had left his conventional life and now roamed the land on foot with his dog, his few belongings in a battered old engineless van, pulled by two camels... and here he was in the flesh! We stopped for a chat and to say hello to the humped creatures, and he told us he had been wandering Australia for fourteen years not missing his old life at all, and as he unrolled his mattress for th night under a beautiful bruised black and orange sky, it seemed like a good choice.