KARIJINI NATIONAL PARK – WA

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So we have ✅ ticked another box in our bucket list. Karijini National Park has beautiful swimming holes/pools and ‘Gorgeous Gorges’ to walk through.

In Australia we are spoilt with spectacular gorges and swimming holes some are easier to get to than others and I guess we have been fortunate to experience quite a few along our journey. We are very happy we stopped and looked at it through our own eyes and yes it is quite spectacular in areas.

Anyway we spent a couple of nights at Dales Gorge camping ground, our base to explore the area.

👉Dump point🚽
👉Optus available sometimes, no Telstra📱
👉Car entrance fee into the park $7 (concession)💲
👉Camping fees $7 per person (concession) per night💲
👉Long Drop toilets – there is absolutely no shortage of toilets scattered throughout the camp area and they are very clean with toilet paper🚻

👉No power❌
👉No water❌
👉No TV or Radio❌
👉No rubbish bins – so make sure you take your rubbish with you❌
👉No pets ❌

👉Closest available fuel is either at Tom Price about 90 kms or Auski Roadhouse about 116 kms. ⛽️

Before heading to our camp site for the night we stopped at the Visitor Information Centre as it’s 10kms from Dales Gorge camp area. It’s a very informative centre about the region and here we picked up our maps for walking the different gorges and the various swimming holes. Dales George which is close to the camp grounds is a good starting point to start exercising your legs – we needed the exercise.

Entering the camp grounds you first need to check in with the camp hosts as they will make sure that you have paid all your fees and send you off to your designated site. Once we settled into our campsite we decided to take a late afternoon walk to Fern Pool.

To do this you need to walk to Fortescue Falls lookout and then down what seemed like hundreds of steps, we lost count at 99. Then a further 300m’s upstream along the gorge floor to Fern Pool. It was beautiful and the water was refreshing.

The night was very peaceful and we managed to amuse ourselves with some music videos that we had with us, a few drinks and a delicious dinner. The next morning we got up early as we had been told the walk we were going to do would take us about 3 hours return. After some brekky we headed off around 9 a.m. with our backpacks and the mandatory fly nets. Yep this is what it’s like in the North of WA the flies can get pretty bad, up your nose and in your eyes.

At least this time we knew where we were going to start our walk. Down the steps to Fortescue Falls and then take a left turn following the yellow dots that guide you along the track to the bottom of the gorge. It’s still hot here and the guy at the Visitor Information Centre said that walking on the bottom of the gorge is cooler in the morning as you are mostly in the shade. Make sure you wear good walking shoes as this is a Class 4 walk with a few steep and slippery sections and strategically placed stepping stones as you cross from one side of the gorge to the other.

At the end of the track you can either go up a steep climb which includes a small ladder and walk back along the gorge rim or walk further to Circular Pool. Sections of this walk are steep and a little rough in places. The pool is beautiful and has the clearest water.

We returned along the same track so that we could enjoy a lunch break at a secluded pool with small waterfalls we had found earlier in the day. It was also an opportunity to get our feet massaged under one of the tinny waterfalls and oh my, how absolutely refreshing the water was.

All in all it took us 4 hours to do the 3 hour walk, because we stopped so many times taking in our surrounds and also enjoyed chatting to numerous travellers we passed along the way.

Below are a list of others places we have visited that may be of interest to you:

Cheers

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Happy Aussie Caravanning Lifestyle

Dixie and Graeme