Blogs from Karijini National Park, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 6

We finally made it out of Exmouth! We hopped on the EasyRider Bus Monday morning and headed off with Stimpy, our driver, on our travels again! At last we were going somewhere; little did we know that we would come to a halt again later that night. This time however, we had good luck! As we were paying for our stay in Karijini we were asked if we wanted a week’s work at the Eco Retreat as they had a staff shortage. Accommodation, food, a wage, and a chance to explore the gorges that we couldn't have done any other way, we said yes straight away! That night we were fed by Western Exposure, their bus had broken down and we picked them up and brought them to Karijini so we had yummy fish, beats 2 ... read more

In Port Hedland there were Solar Salt Plants and in one of them, there was a hand sticking up, it wasn’t real though. Someone was being cheeky. We went to the petrol station and we saw another Ultimate, then another Ultimate. We didn’t notice at first that they were some friends of ours from Melbourne. So we had a chat to them. At the petrol station we got some Freeza Slurpys which are just like icypoles in a cup. Half lemonade and half raspberry and you had a spoon to eat them with. At Marble Bar we saw the Jasper that people thought was Marble. You had to bring a bucket to throw water on the Jasper to show up the true colours. In Newman we went on a mine tour of the open cut mine. ... read more

From Port Hedland we drove into Karijini National Park and entered the park at the East Entry Point. We stayed at Dales Camp ground area for four nights, which meant the nearest shower and drinking water were near the Visitor Centre, about 10km away (we refilled on most days as we passed by). Karijini gave us the four coldest nights of this trip so far, waking up with temperatures near 0C! Day one - Visitor Centre, setting up. Day two - Dales Gorge, including Fortescue Falls and Circular Pool walks. Day three - Weano Gorge walk, including Handrail Pool; Hancock Gorge, including the Spider walk. Day four - Knox Gorge lookout, Joffre Falls and Gorge walk (where Mark and Thomas had a swim at the bottom. Annelies and Alex just looked on and thought warm thoughts!!); ... read more

It's been a while since I've written so I must have been having fun! I put a notice up in the hostel at Exmouth and picked up 2 German girls Lena and Sally who were looking to go to Karijini National Park and then on to Broome. It was quite hard getting to know them on the 6 hour journey in the car but the universal language of music always works, so on went the iPod and I soon learnt they don't like dance music! Oh well that only rules out 70% of my music... but it turns out that Lena is also a closet Westlife fan so poor Sally has had to deal with me and Lena (who both know ALL the words) singing! That's enough to send anyone crazy. We camped at Tom Price ... read more

After breakfast on Saturday morning we walked to the Joffre lookout point to see the view from the top of where we walked yesterday. Straight into bus (no packing away needed) to drive to Knox Gorge - a fairly long way away but I put my mp3 player on for some good tunes! The gorge wasn't too difficult a walk but fairly long and winding over stepping stones across the river - we got to the end where a big fallen tree had landed in between the rocks. Carol noticed that with a bit of decoration (the 'Danger No Entry' tape) the tree looked a bit like a horse, so we had fun taking pictures of that - and then I nearly lost my balance trying to stand up so got down quick-sharpish! Back along the ... read more