Hello lovely people no. 29 (no. 6 in Australia)

We retrace our steps south from Exmouth and turn left – heading slightly south and east, our destination Karijini National Park. From the left turn the vegetation and landscape changes slightly: the earth much redder, gum trees trees, an occasional rolling hill on the horizon. The crests of the hills are marked by a single line of trees, in the distance they remind me of the walls of Rajasthani hill forts

We stop overnight at Cheela Plains. Our first station stay. It used to be a major cattle ranch but is now run mostly for tourism, although it was very low key with a few cabins and pitches. The staff are all delightful. One explains to Alison M that they are looking at eco, astro and geo tourism for the future. It seems a no-brainer – what stars, what rocks. But they need to get the word out and presumably provide guided star gazing and rock hunting . . .  We have dinner with a handful of other travellers and two young guys out surveying for a company called GRAVITY, who provide services to mine companies prospecting for metals/minerals. Their main piece of equipment was a Canadian quartz spring (at a cost of US $200,000) which was used to measure density of the rocks and identify different minerals. Complex (and probably badly explained here) but fascinating. Mining is huge business in WA

Before dinner we walk up sunset hill. Again a small hillock of a few metres but the views are excellent: big terrain, big sky, big red. Andy does the same walk to watch the sunrise

The next day we notice an increase in and change of traffic: we are heading towards mining country

Before Karijini we stop and stock up at Tom Price – the town (and it seems originally the mine and mountain – of which more below) is named after Thomas Moore Price, the vice-president of the giant United States steel company Kaiser Steel. Price was one of the main supporters of the opening of the Pilbara region for mining iron ore. The reason for our stop: we are staying four nights at Karijini and need to be self sufficient. Dales Campground is within the park and run by Australian Parks and Wildlife with pitches, bush toilets and no other services: no water, showers, power, shop. We set up camp in the late afternoon. It is red, red, red. No grass in the pitches – or anywhere, except native spinifex, and the bedrock is a challenge to our tent pegs and lack of a lump hammer. One of our grey-nomad neighbours takes pity on us and lends us a lump hammer (although most pegs are replaced/reinforced by rocks and logs) and, later, gives us a gas ignition wand when our repeated efforts to light the gas for our camping stove by matches are thwarted by the stiff breeze. We are such novices!

The stars are amazing, a complete dome, horizon to horizon. We see the Milky Way (but cannot photograph it)

Next morning after breakfast we set off walking:  Dales Gorge, first the lookout, then steps down to the gorge (how and who carved those out of this unyielding rock?)

As the sun becomes hot we swim at circular pool (seriously cold, but we have no showers), and walk along the gorge, awestruck by the vast walls, their colour and textures. There is evidence of water although apart from the pools the gorge is dry – there are trees and reeds and occasionally verdant landscapes 

A heads-up: this gorge – and the other Karijini sights – are full of stunning rocks, all irresistibly  photogenic, but this means a lorra, lorra rock pictures (RIP Cilla)

We lunch and swim at Fortescue Falls: warmer and more people, walk to Fern pool (apparently the warmest but we do not indulge a third time)

The return to camp is the Gorge Rim walk – which gives us a a different perspective 

Another chilly evening, dinner under the stars and the Milky Way highly visible again

The next morning Roberto collapses the roof-top tent and we drive across the park to Kalamina Gorge. Charlie, one of the camp hosts, tells us the gorge rocks “look as if they have been spread by a butter knife” and he is right. Beautifully smooth, variously coloured rocks make for relatively easy walking and the gorge was lush, not much evidence of the river above ground but plenty of trees, shrubs and rushes. The gorge ends at a pool: dramatic rocks, an arch and cold clear water. We all swim – who needs showers!

That evening we go to an astronomy experience. A natural planetarium, inky sky, jewel bright stars, an entertaining as well as informative talk about planets, stars, space. Impossible-to-grasp-statistics, three telescopes to peer through. It was brilliant – and I can now confidently pick out the Southern Cross and (possibly) find due south using it

After two days of sublime gorge walking we head to the edge of the park to walk Mt Bruce and overlook a vast iron ore mine operated by Rio Tinto. A very different landscape, scared in one direction by the Marandoo mine: opencast from 1964; mining below the water table from 2012. It looks impossibly large. We video a goods train pulling out the ore and lose count of carriages: it ran and ran (and the video is pretty boring!); information on the mine discloses the trains are 2 Ks long, of 200 cars each carrying 100 tonnes of ore

The walk up the mountain is hot; I give up as the path becomes vertiginous; Alison M gives up as the path becomes a lateral cliff face with a guiding chain; Andy and Roberto give up where to continue \they are required to free climb up a 1:10 rock face. We reunite for our picnic lunch under a tree providing some small shade and chat to youngsters on the descent: there is apparently another hour of difficult path to the summit after Andy and Roberto stopped. We are not sad not to have made it!

We ready ourselves for breaking camp the next morning and before we leave Andy photographs the enormous termite mound close to our pitch and the galahs – the most frequently spotted bird life – we are still amazed at how little wildlife we see

We head north to Port Hedland, slightly more traffic than encountered so far but a lot of it road trains and huge loaders carrying mining equipment. It is a feature of driving these roads that these abnormal loads, preceded by a car with warning lights, require users temporarily to vacate them. 

Port Hedland has a poor reputation as an unattractive, industrial town with nothing to redeem it (but it is as far as we want to travel with a big drive the following day). In fact we found it rather charming: salt pans and an enormous salt mountain, a renovated rather old hotel where we had a drink, yet another fabulous sunset 

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We also have a motel room with fierce and hot showers. We and everything we are travelling with and in have a thoroughly embedded red dirt patina which on us is barely addressed by those showers . . .

Until next time, g’day to you all

ALISON 

PS: map below shows our route from Exmouth to Port Hedland via Karijini