Dales Gorge, Fortescue Falls, Fern Pool and Circular Pool
We drove into Karijini National Park and soon found the remarks from a photographer we met in Port Hedland confirmed. It’s just like the Gibb River Road, but all closer together. I think it’s actually much better than the GRR! The hills are more red and darker due to the high iron ore content. And there is much more green due to some recent rainfalls. This makes for a much better contrast and much more pleasant view! On top, the waterfalls actually have some water; more points for Karijini. The walks to the gorges and swimming holes are much shorter and no problem for a 3-year old - again more points for Karijini. And there are no crocs! Let’s hand out some more points to Karijini.
After an ice cream at the ranger station, we drove off to the only campground at Dales Gorge. It’s a huge camp area with several loops. We got a spot in the Dingo loop and soon had our van parked.
We drove the couple of meters to the Dales gorge day parking area (We didn’t want to be exhausted before seeing the gorge). Only a couple of meters into our walk there is a fantastic lookout down onto the Fortescue Falls. It’s a gentle fall, with some green moss growing. What a view! We hiked down into the gorge and followed the path to the Fern Pool about 150m up the gorge. Fantastic swimming. It’s only about 50m across, nice and sunny with a little waterfall to swim under and behind.
It was still early afternoon and we decided to hike down the gorge to the Circular Pool. It’s a class 4 hike – at some point you have to jump from rock to rock across the water and at others you have to hold onto the cliff on the side not to fall into the water. But we all managed without any problems. It was stunning. The gorge is pretty narrow, so you get very close to those fantastic colours of the cliff. The rock formation here was very interesting. Everything was flat with sharp, square edges. No boulders or round rocks. Just square sheets of rock, or piles of rectangular pieces. We arrived at Circular Pool just as the last rays of sun left the gorge. The water was cold and the sun was now gone, so we didn’t swim here.
Joffre Falls and Knox Gorge Lookout
It's a 40 km drive from Dales Campground, mainly on gravel road. From the lookout into the gorge we could see some people far down at the bottom, just starting to hike up again. It took us a while to figure out where the way was and it looked very steep. We decided to try at least part of the hike; it was too beautiful to not go! Sarah happily started the rock hopping again and we went to the other side of the gorge and about 30m down. But from there on (the last 120m) the ‘hopping’ would have turned into a real vertical rock climbing and we didn’t want to risk falling and rolling over the cliffs.
Next we went to Knox Gorge Lookout. It's a class 5 hike, too
dangerous and steep for Sarah so we just enjoyed the lookout and a picnic. Even
two young French guys were panting heavily when they came climbing up from the
bottom of the gorge.
On the way to Kalamina Gorge Sarah fell asleep so we drove back to our camp to have another swim in the Fern pool later in the afternoon.
Bye, bye Karijini
Looking at the maps the whole evening we finally and sadly decided not to do the Weano Gorge the next day. Instead we drove out of the NP towards Mount Bruce, which is the second highest mountain in WA. It’s a majestic looking rock when you approach it via the highway. There is a hike all the way up, about 9km return since it seems to go up from the long side. Way to long for Sarah and in the middle of the day, so we only did the 500m walk to a little lookout onto the Rio Tinto Mine behind the mountain. The view from the top must be spectacular!
How stupid can we be..
Until 1991 the land where the mine now sits, belonged to Karijini National Park, before it got excluded so it could be mined. Today they even have to lower the water table to dig more ore out. Makes you wonder what effect this has on the National Park. Also how much worth does a National Park have, if it can just be re-zoned? The employment argument doesn’t wash with us either. A much bigger mine only employs about 700 people. We (Australia) are selling our resources for next to nothing without creating much wealth out of it. Now with a falling iron ore price BHP and Rio Tinto both compensate with a 50% bigger output (at an even lower price). How stupid can we be…