20150628 WA Karijini National Park

20150628  We arrived at the Karijini National Park information centre and grabbed a shower before heading to the camp grounds.  All parked up we decide to check out the Gorge for a short walk.

Fortescue Falls at Dales Gorge

It may be a long walk down rugged steps but once you reach the falls it is well worth it, if some older folk can walk down with a walking stick I'm sure we can.  

A truly beautiful gorge with it's turquoise water which made it very inviting for a swim only it was far to cold for me, but that didn't phase the many back packers.

Their were so many people climbing over the gorge face, that from below they looked like little ants.

Fern Pool

Up the track a bit is the even more beautiful Fern Pool, a spring fed permanent water fall surrounded by ferns and trees. I so wanted to go for a swim but when I watched a man jump in and say the expression on his face, that was enough for me.

It's not a good photo but you can see the many fish that live in the Fern Pool. 

Our initially thought was only to walk a bit of the gorge today but after talking to some people who had just completed the walk we decided to brave it and do all of Dales Gorge.  Class 4 trail is for the experienced bush-walker with a good level of fitness, that sounds like us.

There are warning signs through the gorge regarding the blue asbestos and just outside of Karijini lies the town of Wittenoom and for many years (1937-66) it was the site of extensive blue asbestos mining.

Workers shovel raw blue asbestos into drums at an asbestos shoveling competition in 1962.

With the beginning of WW1 there was a demand for asbestos for use in tanks, planes, battleships, helmets and gas masks and unbeknown to the early prospectors they mined the fibres with pick and shovel and no mask's.

We were told there has been 20 people killed in Karijini National Park and I can understand why. Just look around you, the gorge is surrounded by split rock that are far from safe and looks like they could come away at any time.  Just this week a young backpacker fell to his death after being told twice not to climb a 7 metre rock face, just to sit on a ledge for a photo in which it collapsed.

A good example: All that holds this part of the rock face together are these few little rocks, I'm sure after the next flood this part of the rock face will be no more.
I'm so glad I take the photos.

Ya! we made it to the Circular Pool another swimming hole hidden in amongst the gorge.  It would be easy to get hurt, just watching these kids and parents climbing and tip towing over the slippery rocks was enough for me.

The trail linked one end of the gorge to the other, a 3 hour walk which can be rough in places and many obstacles, steep in sections and limited signage, arrr a piece of piss, until we had to climb out. What we didn't realise was we had to climb up a deep rock face to get out, we figured about 50 to 60 metres and when we looked up their was also a ladder we had to tackle which was on a 90 deg angle, not happy, I was so relieved once we made it to the top.

Can you imagine that over 2500 million years ago, where Des is now standing was the sea floor, mother nature takes control. 

30-06-2015  We were lucky enough to have been asked if we would like to join a couple to visit Weano Gorge so we jumped at the offer and stayed another day.

Weano Gorge

From the Oxer lookout you can view for of the gorges, Joffre, Hancock, Red and Weano Gorge and it is what they say "Breathtaking".

Our initial thought was to do the class 5 track but after talking to a backpacker she said it was quite hard and a lot of climbing so we opted for the class 4.  Down we go stepping over stagnate and slippery rocks, man sometimes I think we have lost our marbles but we kept on going.

We needed to Climb along the narrow rock wall to pass to the other side.

 Well we made it to the first part of our journey so we stopped for lunch and thanks to our companions we could get a photo together.

After some tips from Gavin I finally managed to take a relatively decent shoot of the waterfall, now let’s see if I can store it in my memory bank. 

Now this is where it got tricky, the idea is to walk along the L.H.S ledge, then across the water to the R.H.S and climb onto the rock ledge and keep going to get to the best part of the gorge, which also meant, getting wet to our waist.
NOPE

I had some backpackers tell me that two weeks is not enough to explore all of the gorge's in Karijini National Park and going by the two we saw I am inclined to agree with them.  
What a truly wonderful and exciting experience, the Dale Gorge certainly gave me that WOW factor.