Blogs from Karijini National Park, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 4

We were up really early again to get on the road. We had a long drive ahead of us. We left Exmouth at 6:30am and we arrived in the mining town of Tom Price just after lunch time. We ate our lunch in the park and then stocked up on any supplies we needed. In the afternoon we drove the one and a half hours into Karijini National Park. We were staying at the eco retreat out there which has all solar powered heating for the showers and eco tents with bunk beds in them. Is a really cool place to stay in the middle of no where haha. We all got changed and headed down to Joffre gorge which was right behind the tents we were staying at. Took us only a few minutes to ... read more

Here we are then at Karijini National Park, via a free overnight stay north of Port Hedland, a damp overnight at Auski Roadhouse and 2 nights too many in Port Hedland, sorry guys this place is the pits, well to be accurate, mountains. Mountains of iron ore, rock salt and many other minerals are piled high ready for loading at the docks, where at any one time there can be up to 25 container ships awaiting to receive their cargo. BHP Billiton alone ships 100 million tonnes of iron ore per year, with 300 million tonnes being the target in the coming years. At an average of $40 per tonne, not bad! Anyway, what happened on Saturday 11th as we set off from Port Hedland to Auski Roadhouse? Two things, it rained and rained, and we ... read more

Our first stop after leaving Kununurra was Halls Creek. The caravan park was nice and quiet which suited us fine, as we had heard a few horror stories of drunken violence in the area. Halls Creek is the closest town to Wolfe Creek Crater, caused by a meteorite falling to Earth. It is the second largest in the world after Arizona in the USA. The crater is only accessible via a 4wd track and is 800m in diameter. Grady had been particularly looking forward to seeing the crater and was bitterly disappointed when told the road had been closed only a few days earlier. Flights over the area were $180 each but only for two or more people, so it was not possible for Grades to see the crater. I have vowed to return to the ... read more

Day 174 - De Grey River to Karijini National Park via Port Hedland! And there was us thinking that the early morning dawn chorus would wake us up at some ludicrous hour! Neither of us woke till just before 6am, what a lie in that was! It’s a relatively short journey to Port Hedland, a very industrial mining town where Rio Tinto and BHP rule all! It’s got a bit of a different look from Broome! Port Hedland is one of the busiest commodity ports in the world and the largest in Australia. BHP Billiton Iron Ore exports more than 100 million tonnes of iron ore per year from its harbour. Definitely a boys place! There’s no intention to stop overnight here, although we suspect it might be fun but we’re only here for the visitors ... read more

The drive to Karajini seems to take forever. The roads have now become endless and monotonous, the beautiful coastal scenery now replaced with grasslands, bushes, some hills and mountains. The dry heat of the Pilbarra region becomes stifling and unbearable at times. The radio stations seem to be stuck in a 1980’s time warp or constantly play country music so we drive along to the sound of silence or me singing, at times resorting to playing whatever games can wind the time down. The odd car or campervan passes and we raise the obligatory acknowledgement sign... can’t imagine waving at passing cars in London (not politely anyway!!) When we arrive at Dale Gorge campsite the weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse and its clouding over. We spot our first wild dingo as ... read more