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Karijini National Park is an amazing display of God's creative greatness and diversity! The park consists of a number of spectacular gorges of varying degrees of hiking difficulty - we walked all 6 of the park's gorges and have come away with such a satisfied feeling of achievement, as well as amazement at the beauty and ruggedness of this amazing Pilbara landscape.
We camped at Dales Campground which is walking distance to the beautiful Dales Gorge. This gorge is about 1.2km long with rock pools at both ends - Circular Pool at one end and Fortescue Falls and Fern Pool at the other. For all the gorges, to access the walks along the base of the gorge, you needed to climb down a rocky path which sometimes included ladders - one slip and you could end up on an RFDS flight out of there! We did this gorge twice as it was close to our camp and also very picturesque.
Driving along a red dirt road, about 55km from our camp were Weano and Hancock Gorges, as well as Knox, Joffre & Kalamina. We decided to do the harder ones first - a Class 4 and Class 5 (Weano & Hancock). The lower Weano gorge consisted of either scaling a rock wall or walking waist deep through water before entering a narrow section which dropped down to a pool, where you had to hold on to a rail to lower yourself down. Amazing as well as scary (for me)!
Hancock Gorge started with a steep downward climb, scaling a rocky wall, then 'spider-walking' through a narrow section and through to Kermit's Pool. We both really felt a sense of achivement - and I have sore thighs to vouch for my hard work!! Kalamina Gorge was a nice picturesque end to our day.
The following day we tackled the last two, and I hadn't realized that Knox Gorge was also a Class 5! But we did it! Joffre Falls were also amazing. The rock formations of these gorges are so different here in the Pilbara with iron ore being predominantly mined here. The colours and patterns are amazing. There is even a warning about blue asbestos fibre growing among the rocks, which we could see in places.
I had been saying to Alf that we hadn't been to church for a few weeks and then we noticed a sign in the campground that there would be a service on the Sunday evening! We had a group of about 15 campers and a Uniting Church Frontier pastor to take the service which even included communion. A great time of fellowship!
After spending 5 days in Karijini, we headed back west towards the coast, stopping at Hammersley Gorge to see the amazing 'wave' rock formations. Another one of God's spectacular masterpieces!
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Richard Downing Glad to see you managed to gorge yourself in the Karanjini