Trevor & Jonathans Cruise & Trip to the Far East and Australia 2016

Day 74 - Friday July 22nd 2016 - Karijini National Park to Port Hedland,Western Australia

We had both woken up later in the car park than we had thought that we would. Luckily there had been no pythons in the van (to our knowledge anyway) and now we were to face a morning and day with no shower.

We had breakfast and then the best wash that we could with boiled water on the gas ring and out little sink. We improvised with a jay cloth and stood out in the open carpark and washed the best that we could. A bowl of cereal later and it was time to pack up again and get on the move and explore the park we had travelled so many hours to see.

It felt like we had really left the sunshine of Exmouth far behind as it was a really overcast day, the cloud layer above us looked thin but substantive so there was a real dullness to the day. Sleeping in our car park had not been a problem at all and we’re sure of all the nights on this trip it will be the one that we will always reference and talk about.

We drove off into the park following signs for the Fortescue Falls not for any other reason other than they were on the list to see and it was the first sign that we saw.

The park leaflet detailed all the things to see and do in the park but we knew that we were playing pick and choose, there was no way that on out timescales we would be able to see it all so hopefully we would be biting off the best bits. The leaflet divided all the sights into grades of difficulty to access from class one to class five. These were based on vertical drops, unmade paths and water and well basically the amount of obstacles to navigate. Everything that we wanted to see seemed to be class four and Trev was really unsure of his ability to get round but like a trooper he said that he would give it a go and see how he got on.

The Karijini National Park is remote, really remote. Historically it is aboriginal land and evidence exists that shows that they populated this area over 30,000 years ago. The park itself is situated just north of the Tropic of Capricorn and the climate here is best described as tropical semi-desert. It mainly rains in the summer here (we are here in the winter months) where an average rainfall of 250-300mm is often experienced. Temperatures in the summer frequently exceed 40 degrees (thank goodness we did all that walking and climbing in the winter).

So like we said our first stop of the day was the Fortescue Falls. We parked up the van in the upper car park and walked along a metal grid walkway at the top of the Dales Gorge that slowly turned into a series of metal grid staircases that led you down into the gorge itself and onto the top of the falls. The rock face of the gorge is spectacular. For a start it’s the colour of the rock, think really rusted metal, that orange flaky colour you get on the ground from railway lines, more orange than brown and quite luminous and that’s the colour of the rock. When you then get that colour in the scale of the walls of this canyon it really is quite unique and spectacular. On top of the colour you then get the actual geology of the rock face itself. The rock face looks like slices of bread all stacked on top of each other in a jagged pattern. It’s all very straight and angular almost like perfect paving slabs but 100’s of metres tall. As you descend the metal staircase you get great views up the gorge and at the falls themselves, crashing into the pool of the canyon, the pool forming a waterway at the base of the canyon flowing as far as our eyes could see from this vantage point.

We left the metal of the staircases behind and landed on top of the falls themselves. A large flat area of rock with bush and forest behind us and in front of us the pool. The water was emerald green in colour and was so inviting especially as we had not had a shower. The guide leaflets informed us that you are allowed into all the pools of the park but they advise that they are cold and can lead to hyperthermia so we were put off by that and had not bought our towels or swimming stuff with us, we would come to regret that later.

The falls rock face leads down to the floor of the gorge and later we would have to navigate all the drops and overhangs of the rock face to get down to the bottom but for now it was time to head off in the direction of the forest and follow a narrow path (watching out for pythons as we went) to get to the Fern Pool.

The Fern Pool is only a 300 metre walk from the falls but it feels longer as you have to climb and navigate the wet path and fallen trees and rocks. The fern pool is a very shaded pool with trees growing all around it and yes you guessed the odd fern or two. What was really surprising was how warm the water felt to a dipped in hand especially with all the shade surrounding the pool. At the far side of the pool was a small waterfall keeping the water fresh and clean. This was a real missed opportunity. As I said before we had not bought our swimming stuff with us having been put off by the hyperthermia reports but had we had them with us we would have been in…..gutted!

The water of the Fern Pool was a real emerald green and you could make out small fish swimming in it along with the usual plant life that you expect to find in a pool. It really is a beautiful place and with no one else around you feel a bit like a voyeur, looking at something that you shouldn’t be like it’s one of nature’s secrets that it intended to keep.

We left the Fern Pool behind back up the path from which we came to the Fortescue Falls and started our decent down to the Dale gorge floor literally climbing down the rock face adjacent to the falls themselves.

There was no handrail, no path, it was slippery and awkward and to be honest pretty hair raising at times but we made it down. The rock formations really help, like I said they are in layers so they do sort of cut a form of staircase naturally but it doesn’t stop some of the drops from being huge. This sort of activity is not Trevor’s thing and but we have to say he was really brave at even going ahead and trying to make it down but he did it and he deserved to be proud of himself at making it to the bottom.

Our adventure was far from over yet though. We now needed to cross the pool at the bottom of the falls to get to the path that would take us the length of the gorge itself and onto the Circular Pool, right up the other end of the gorge.

This was not easy. The rock face was super slippery and there was nowhere dry to actually cross so you were putting your feet into the water, hoping that they would not slip from beneath you, holding onto branches and long grasses as you tried to make your way over. There were a couple of nearly ass over tit moments but we made it, now it was a serious hike to the circular pool.

The path at the base of the gorge was like something from a kid’s activity park. We climbed rocks, clambered over trees and squeezed between fallen rocks. We walked over stepping stones in the stream, all wet and slippery and dusty pathways, just about everything that can be thrown at you. Needless to say really the surrounding made up for all this physical exertion, I mean you’re surrounded by the height of the copper coloured rock face of the gorge walls themselves then these the flowing water and the mix of fauna. Places like this only exist in Australia, with this make up and this mix of landscape and rock coloration. Its relatively easy to understand why the aborigine people thought that these places were mystical.

Once again the water were flowing an emerald green colour, the red earth pathways were damp and puddled and actually finding the pathway through was difficult enough. There where little markers to help. Tiny white disks with a yellow centre with the number four written in it, just to remind us that we were walking a difficult trail. Sometime we would just loose them completely, or thinking that we could see a better dryer route through we would step out of line normally always having to double back on ourselves as we were met with a steep drop at the end of our detour.

The walk to the circular pool seemed quite endless and we must have walked for over an hour, the guide leaflet says that the walk is only 2km but it feels a lot longer than this due to the terrain that you are crossing.

After so many obstacles and with feet that had been wet and sweaty bodies we finally made it to the Circular Pool. What makes this pool just that little bit extra special is the rock face that stands as its backdrop. Once again it is in the burnt orange iron colour and is cut into layers and layers but there is something about the way the sun hits it that makes it all the more unusual.

There was a big guided group at the pool when we got there, all youngsters on a backpacking day out. Clearly they had all just been in the pool for a swim before we got there and by the way that they were standing there shivering the water was obviously very cold indeed.

Our next adventure was to actually get out of the gorge itself and this involved a serious climb up the rock face all the way to the top again using the split rock surface as natures version of a staircase. It was quite a climb, a mixture of sloped earth and flat rock with one man made ladder to climb to get you up a seriously steep part. The route had certainly deserved its grade four listing but we had completed the circuit and seen four of the must see things of this national park and they were as promised both unique and stunning, well worth the effort of ever you get here.

It was now a twenty minute or so walk around the rim of the canyon with some stunning views into the gorge and where we had just been as we navigated ourselves back to the Fortescue falls car park where this had all begun. Unbelievably this is where we managed to lose our way, by that I mean we still knew where we were but we had lost the track having been distracted by a great view down into the gorge. We soon found the way again but it made us chuckle after all that we had already done this morning, and we hadn’t got lost once and now on a flat path way we lose our way!

Back at the van we had a well deserved drink and looked through the rest of the parks key places to visit. We knew that we had already bitten off the best that the park had to offer, all the guides told us that and we still had a four hour drive ahead of us today so with that in mind we decided to hit the road, leave the park and move on.

We could have spent days in the park but this trip is about tough choices sometimes as we just don’t have the time. There were many more gorges to see and many more lookout points but reading through the literature it was clear we were going to see more of the same with subtle differences so move on it was.

Once we made it back onto the main highway and out of the national park it really was road train after road train going up and down the road to Port Hedland. These were some of the longest that we had seen this time in Australia and they were all carrying the same thing, iron ore form the mines to the port. The landscapes that we drove through to get to the port were a real mixed bag from stunning canyons of red rock to dessert to bushland scrub. We stopped at probably the most remote road house we have ever frequented, having to hand over a form of ID first before they would let you use the petrol pumps to fill up. Obviously they have had a lot of fill and go without paying problems here and the road house was a bit of a dump, I mean they only sold instant coffee and you had to make that yourself!!

As we drove into Port Hedland all you could see was industry. From the vast port area to the huge trains sat in the sidings waiting to move minerals around the place to the vast mounds of salt being harvested here, all you could see was industry.

Port Hedland is one of the world’s largest and busiest public harbours and it absolutely dominates the town. We found our campsite eventually (for some reason it was called many names but was the same place so it was all a bit confusing) but didn’t park up for long. We grabbed a local map from reception and headed off to what they called the town centre to see what else there was to Port Hedland other than shipping?

The answer to that question is nothing! Well at least nothing that we could find. We parked up in the town it was by now about four in the afternoon. Everything was shut or shutting and there were only a few dozen shops on the strip with most of them being employment agencies looking for traddies (Aussie term for workmen) to run the port etc. If you really need a job this is a great place to come as they were advertising lots of vacancies.

We walked to a park at the end of the town that looked out to the ports mouth. There were huge tankers all docked along the quay but for the most part all seemed very quiet in the dock, guess t was home time.

So with nothing going on in Port Hedland that we could find we made a quick stop off at Woolworths (it’s a supermarket over here and there is no pick and mix in sight) before heading back to the campsite.

We had chores to do so it was no bad thing having an evening in the van. As soon as awe parked up I went off to the laundry room and stayed there for the best part of two hours. We had two washing machines full of dirty stuff and then there was the drying and ironing to do. Trev stayed in the van getting dinner ready and just as all the ironing was done it was served up, chilli with sourdough bread with a blob of sour cream on top.

The rest of the night was spent talking about our ongoing trip and where and when we were going along with a bit of iPad watching. It had been a long yet really rewarding day and tomorrow saw the last of our big drives before we had a mini brake from the road with three nights in Broome. The last town on the western Australia coast.