Travel News - Western Australia
08 October, 2005 - 10 October, 2005 - Karijini National Park
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One of the major destinations that we have been looking forward to is Karijini National Park. We have heard so much about Karijini, that I was afraid my expectations might be too high. But, I was impressed. It is one of the best National Parks we have visited. The Gorges here are wonderful. As we were driving in, you could sense this was a special place. The first place we saw was Dales Gorge from the lookout. That was impressive enough, and then we went down into it. |
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The entrance to the gorges is steep, but normally only for a few hundred metres and then it is fairly flat walking along the gorge. With the occasional climb over rocky cliffs or frog-hop over creeks. In Dales Gorge there were several swimming possibiities, but we chose Circular Pool at the bottom of a rounded cliff face. They request "quite swimming", in all the gorges because serpents inhabit most of the waters. We no longer question the aboriginal thoughts about serpents and sacred sites - we also believe that serpents exist here. If you sit and enjoy the peace and tranquillity in all these places, you can't help but believe that something must be watching over these beautiful places. |
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In the middle of Karijini is the Kalamina Falls. These is a very nice waterfall here, but during the photo selection I couldn't go past the following 2 photos of the rock formations. After all it is the rock at Karijini that is so fascinating. The thin layer upon layer of rock that is bent is every direction is a reminder of the earth movement that happened here millions of years ago. The thin slices of rock break off and pile up on the bottom of the gorges. When you walk over the loose slabs, it sounds like plates of pure iron banging against each other. In fact the rocks are so high in iron a mining company once said they would pay just to have the dust. Fortunately, it was deemed a National Park before becoming mine site. |
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The next day in Karijini we went to the western side to Weano Gorge and Hancock Gorge. These are probably 2 of the most photographed gorges in the park. We did the Hancock Gorge first which starts out as quite a wide gorge, but gradually narrows down to shoulder width as you walk further in. Then it opens out into smaller chasms. The Spider Walk and Kermits Pool are in the Hancock Gorge. These are very impressive. After Kermits Pool you need to do some abseiling to continue, so that's where we returned. |
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As we returned to the car, we saw the same gorge from the opposite angle. It's so impressive you take more photos of the same thing and then can't decide which looks better. That's why some of the photos here are doubled - I couldn't decide which one I liked more. I don't think you really need to describe what the gorges are like. The pictures describe it well enough and it's even better in real life, just to sit and enjoy the atmosphere and hear the flowing water. |
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The next gorge, Weano Gorge, was close by. This walk goes down to the Handrail Pool. Named because they have installed a handrail to descend the last section of the walk to the pool. I am sure the Aboriginal name would have been much more appropriate to the spiritual feeling at the Pool. Non-aboriginal people can swim here, they just ask you to be quite so as not to disturb the serpents that inhabit the pool. We went for a swim. The water was cold, but it was magnificent. |
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The following 2 photos are the gorge leading into the Handrail Pool. It also narrowed down towards the end of the gorge before opening out at the pool. It was possible to go further by swimming through the next part of the gorge and abseiling the next sections. After our swim we returned and did the walk through the rest of the Weano Gorge. |
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On the walk back to the car we saw a red dragonfly. The brown one was also nice that I managed to photograph in the Handrail Pool. We had seen these red and also blue dragonflies all through the gorges but it was hard to get close to them. This red one stayed still long enough for me to try the macro function on our camera. The wings look invisible, but they are there. |
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Next Report : 11 October, 2005 - 15 October, 2005 - Exmouth - Ningaloo Reef
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