MONDAY 19 JULY     KARIJINI NATIONAL PARK

The day promised to be great – blue skies, But not too hot for walking.

We set off through the campground again, walking to the Circular Pool end of the gorge. Took the steep track down into the gorge, then walked along the bottom,  to Circular Pool.

There were quite a few other people on the track and in the gorge – it is a very popular area.

We admired the Circular Pool for a short time, then retraced the way we’d come, as far as the track we’d come down. Continued on past the bottom of that, staying along the gorge bottom, beside the creek.

In places along the track, where people’s legs had brushed against the rocks at its side, we could actually see strands of blue asbestos!

Some asbestos layers in here. Interesting pattern on rock top looks like a map of intersecting gorges.

Fortescue Falls was an attractive feature, but there were too many people there. It was impossible to take a photo that did not have people in it.

Fortescue Falls

There were also a number of the yobbo variety, doing show-off jumps from ledges up on the rock walls. When one sees what some idiots do in the gorges, it is amazing that there are not more accidents and need for rescues!

Continued on, along to Fern Pool, with its cascades. This was a lovely place. There were people swimming here, too.

Fern Pool

Dales Gorge was the most accessible part of Karijini, plus there was the campground there, so we should not have been surprised at having to share it with so many others. Pity, though…

The climb back up to the top again was not too hard, even for this hill hater. That was definitely the best way round to do the circuit.

Fortescue Falls seen from the climb up out of the gorge

Had lunch back at the van, then drove to Kalamina Gorge. There, we walked down a steep but short track, to the gorge base.

Kalimna Gorge

From there, we walked along the gorge floor, as far as Rock Arch Pool.

Temple Hole

It was a most attractive gorge, and quite easy walking for most of it. The walls were high and steep and the gorge quite narrow in parts. On a couple of places, we had to follow rock ledges around.

The Rock Arch was a hole through a section of the gorge wall.

The climb down and the same back up, was easier than at Dales Gorge.

It was a bit late in the day to get great photos of the walk in Kalamina Gorge, unfortunately.

It was a walk well worth doing – and it was away from the crowds!

I was definitely leg weary by the end of the day.

The campground was full up. The old Visitors Centre area was being used as an overflow area – or holding pen! Yet again, we had been lucky.