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3 July
Another cold clear night, but the doona with 2 blankets worked beautifully. Toasty warm in bed whilst outside the temperature plummeted once again into the minus zone, -4°C this time, although there are reports around the camp of -6. Either way it got pretty cold overnight
The morning brings yet another day of clear blue skies and light winds. After breakfast Sandy and I head off to Dale Gorge. Dale Gorge is at the opposite end of the park and involves around 45k of driving to get there, mostly on rough corrugated unsealed roads. We arrive around 10:00 and head off on our hike. We decide to do Fortescue falls and Fern Pool first, then trek through the gorge to Cicular Pool. The decent into the gorge is by the standards we have been experiencing quite easy and well marked. Once we are in the gorge the short walk to Fern Pool past Fortescue falls is also fairly easy going. Along the way we pass a very noisy colony of fruit bats, just hanging around together. Fern Pool is a pretty spot and along the way we pass many trees with root systems not dissimilar to those
we have seen in Cambodia around Ankor Wat. where the roots of the trees seem to take over the rocks eventually splitting them apart.
On our trek through the gorge to Circular pool the passage is very well marked. The most clearly marked of all the gorges. With bitumen roads all the way through to Dales I suspect many of the visitors never experience the other gorges where you need to travel over the corrugated unsealed roads.
As usual inside the gorges there is lots to see and Dales is no exception. Lots of ripple free water, perfect to reflect the red cliff faces with trees clinging to the rocks. Areas where you pass through lots of butterflies, other areas with gecco's sun baking on the rocks and lots of small birds flitting around forriging for food.
Rather than head back the same way we had come we climb out of the gorge and walk along the gorge rim path. In reality probably the easiest long walk of our time in Karijini. A well marked trail that in the majority of the time could also allow wheel chair access (albeit a little bumpy). But the walk also
provides some more brilliant viws through the gorges as well as having some small information boards on some of the trees providing interesting information on how the leaves and fruits and bark were used by the indigenous population as medecine and food.
After lunch it's back to the Eco Tent to start loading up the car for the start of our return journey home tomorrow. The car is packed to the brim with the roof racks and basket packed on the inside of the car....whew it worked! Moyle and Veronica are getting very low on petrol in their Land Cruiser and not sure of the best way they can get to the next refuelling spot either leaving the caravan and heading to Tom Price or chancing towing the caravan to their next destination of Dales camping ground then heading to Auski Roadhouse. As we still have 1 full jerry can and around 1/3 tank of petrol in the Rangie the 20 litres of petrol is put into Moyle's car. They can now get comfortably to Dales camping ground without having to backtrack.
Dinner tonight is at the Eco Retreat restaurant, it's our shout. With only limited resources for
the chefs to work with, the grilled steak and barramundi are the choices for the night. No regrets for selecting the barramundi, it tasted beautiful!
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