On the day we left Tom Price, Jaman and Alex (our new German friends) were leaving too. They beat us out (which isn't a hard thing to do!), only having to pack up a tent, and we were all heading for Hamersley Gorge. Despite some warm days with no rain, we came across a lot of water on the road, with some 'puddles' stretching across the whole road and quite long. We thought that there was no way our German friends could have made it through in their 2WD, and driving into the Hamersley Gorge carpark with Prado covered in red mud, there was their Falcon Stationwagon looking like it had driven on a dry dirt road! We were shaking our heads. Catching up with them, they said Alex walked the water first to check for depth and then Jaman drove through very slowly and it worked. Go the Ford… As we walked into Hamersley Gorge, the colours were magnificent, lots of purple rocks and other unusual shades we had never seen before. The rocks were in waves (called tectonic rock) and they looked like layers of puff pastry, one on top of the other. We experienced our first go at rock scrambling, and were amazed at how great the kids went, without a word of complaint!
From here we stayed at Dales Campground. We checked out Circular Pool, as its name suggests it's circular with small waterfalls you can stand under. Just a beautiful little place. We also walked the track to Fortesque Falls, a Grade 4 track for people with medium to high fitness and the kids did it no worries. A few lifts here and there, where their little legs couldn't reach, but the rest was easy for them. This track ended at Fern Pool, filled with heaps of little fish and me and the kids had a dip under the waterfall at the opposite side of the pool. The fish took a liking to the skin peeling off my legs from sunburn back in Exmouth. Every now and then I felt them biting the back of my thighs; cheeky buggers.
The next gorge along was Kalamina. After a long walk in we were surrounded by high red cliffs that were stunning and Sharyn suggested we have a swim. Since we didn't have our bathers, we stripped down to our underwear and had a lovely time in the rock pools, not believing we had this stunning place to ourselves. It was one of those 'pinch-yourself' moments…
At the western end of Karijini NP the gorges were deeper and more visually spectacular than the eastern end. Joffre Gorge, Knox Gorge, Hancock Gorge, Oxer & Junction Pool, such amazing lookouts, but just looking down into these gorges we knew the kids were too little to tackle these and they would have to wait a few years till their legs were bigger!!
It was at Karijini NP that we awarded our first prize for "the most irritating couple of the trip". This night was really quiet at the campground and nearly all the campsites were free. This couple chose to camp right next to us and being friendly, Sharyn went over for a chat. They were in their late sixties, early 70's from NSW and were obviously not cut out for the travelling life. Every word that came out of their mouth was negative, the woman had one of those whiny little voices that doesn't stop for breath and they bagged Karijini saying it was a waste of time coming in, "the gorges at Litchfield and overseas were sooooo much deeper"... I was hiding in the toilet at this stage, hearing every word and hoping they would stop talking so I could sneak back into the tent, but no luck, Sharyn was stuck, so being the knight in shining armour that I am, I came out to rescue her. We stood there for over 10 minutes listening to them whine and all we could do was smile politely and nod our heads like good little campers (whilst inside we were screaming in agony!). They had only seen this end of the park where the gorges were shallow, but still beautiful, and we couldn't be bothered telling them the gorges at the other end of the park were simply huge (probably like the ones at Litchfield). Luckily they hated it so much they took off early the next day, with us staying inside Trakkie until they left to avoid another agonising whinge. We breathed a big sigh of relief and prayed we'd never see them again!
Speaking of toilets, the drop toilets here were quite good and didn't smell at all but at night they came alive...with cockroaches. They breed them big over here in the West and once the sun went down they scrambled from out of the pit, up the toilet drop off and onto the seats and over the toilet floor. Needless to say night time visits involved taking over a can of fly spray and squatting over the seat, not on it, in case one decided to come up from within and run over our bottoms and other bits. What a thought!
The kids started counting down the days now till Broome when Sharyn's parents were flying over from Ballarat to meet us, so onwards to 80 mile beach we headed, with next stop after that Broome.
Grab it. You dream job is up for grabs.
