We have said good bye to Port Hedland and made the longish 260km trek down to Karijini NP along the Great Northern Hwy. The plan had been to stay in the NP at the Dales Gorge Campground.

Allthego had booked the site months earlier, it is WA school holiday time and the park is totally booked out. So it was good to book so far in advance to secure a spot. The small issue was that he had booked it for the month before and now could now not get a site for the right dates, all booked out!

So we split our time with two nights at the Auski RH and three nights at Tom Price. Both are about 50-60km from the NP. Auski is at the eastern end and Tom Price at the western end of the Park. The Road House is a stopping place for all sorts of road trains. Many shapes and sizes call in and go past at all hours of the night. There is a constant hum for us to sleep through!

From Auski we travelled the road cutting through the Munjina Gorge to Karijini. Quite a steep climb and it slows the big road trains considerably, both ways. A great view of all this from the Albert Tognolini lookout.

The Park Visitor’s Centre was our first port of call. A very comprehensive display of the history of the region and the geography/geology of the gorge system.

At Dales Gorge there is the Fortescue Falls and the pool at the bottom. A steel stair case takes one all the way to the bottom, some stops along the way to take in the view or have a breather, particularly on the way back up. A short walk further up the gorge is Fern Pool. Lots of people have a swim in this very deep and cold pool.

Several hundred metres to the start of the gorge is Circular Pool, beneath towering cliffs, from which water seeps into the pool.

We then moved on several kilometres to Kalamina Gorge, this one was 6km in along a flood damaged heavily corrugated track. Homealone wondered why we were going. It was just ABG!

Allthego saw it as a challenge, and it was a relatively easy descent down to the bottom of the gorge and a pretty pool beneath a short waterfall. That was it for the day, we did have a picnic lunch somewhere!

Back at Auski we packed up the next morning and headed for Tom Price.