Visitors to Karijini National Park have two choices when it comes to accommodation: stay in Tom Price, where there's shops, water and electricity, or stay in the park when you can sleep in the dirt and poo into a hole. I can live without the basics of life for a day or two, but it transpired that Tina could not. After another night to ponder the issue she put her foot down. She wasn't going to camp in Karijini. I could understand her point, and since this was supposed to be a holiday, not some form of personal "Survivor" thing, I relented. We formed a new plan. We'd spend the day in Karijini, then return to Tom Price in the evening. The next day we'd head back to the park, then early afternoon we'd make our way out the other side and drive to the town of Newman where we could tour the huge mining complex before heading home down the inland road known as the Great Northern Highway. With new plan established Tina was all smiles again and we set off to explore Karijini.
Tom Price is about 100kms from the park itself, so we had another hour drive before we got to the visitor centre. It's quite a nice little place with lots of displays of aboriginal art and information about the local wildlife and such. We asked about the conditions of the roads, which are all unsealed in the park.
"This one here," said the ranger, pointing to a map, "is a bit rough, but you'll be alright. The others are fine."
Which sounded OK, so we set off down one of the roads described as "fine". The first kilometre was indeed fine because the grader was busy working on it. Once we got out the working area though, it became pretty terrible - corrugated and bumpy with a lot of loose stones on the surface. We bumped and rattled our way along, Tina trying to find the balance of speed where the suspension smoothed out the bumps, but still allowed the car to grip. After a few hairy moments, and one particularly alarming one where the car started to fishtail quite dramatically, we turned onto the road described as "a bit rough." I was absolutely horrible. After another 15 minutes, and with huge relief, we pulled into the car park of the gorge we intended to explore first. Our car was the only 2 wheel drive! Big 4x4s are pointless and a nuisance around town, but here they are a very handy tool. Still, at the end of the day, our little Honda covered the same ground as these huge tanks.
We stepped out of the car and immediately the flies hit us. Flies are a fact of life in Australia, and they're not like English flies. English files know their place - away from humans and instead around the back ends of horses. Australian flies know no such rules - they like to try to get into your mouth, nose, ears and anywhere else that's damp. Karijini is full of flies! A fly net over the hat really is essential. When I first pulled mine on I felt a bit daft, until I noticed that lots of people had them. It rapidly became apparent that the daft people were the ones who'd set foot in this area without a net!
We set off for the nearest lookout, which was only a few hundred metres from the car park. It was pretty, but the best bit of these gorges is getting down into them and exploring the base. After a spot of lunch back at the car - cold tinned potatoes, cold tinned beans and cold tinned frankfurters, followed by cold tinned fruit - we set off for Handrail Pool, which is one of the long walks along the river beds.
It was beautiful, in a very Australian kind of way. Rocks and pools, trees and bushes, trickling streams flowing over little waterfalls. You need to look at the photos to appreciate this, not that I think my photos are especially great or do the walk real justice. We really love this kind of walk, the more challenging the better, and having been to places like Yosemite and the Grand Canyon in the US, I can honestly say that Karijini rates up there with the best of them.
After a couple of hours, during which we occasionally had to take off our walking boots to wade through water, we clambered down the waterfall which feeds Handrail Pool. We were both hot, but neither of us fancied the hassle of jumping in for a swim - the inconvenience of getting dry and dressed again 10 minutes later just isn't worth it. After cooling down and enjoying the view for a while we set off back. Tina found herself struggling to climb the rope up the rock face, so she just clambered up the waterfall. She got soaked, obviously, but dried out pretty quickly on the walk back.
After another snack back at the car we drove back along the awful road to Joffre Falls. It was 4pm by now, and since we wanted to be back in Tom Price before darkness we couldn't go and explore. Instead we drove back to the visitor centre, from where we had to make a decision. Neither of us liked these unsealed roads, and we were both worried about the effect on the car. Although not causing any immediate problem, if a brake line or something were to shake loose we'd be looking at a huge bill to get the car recovered out of the park back to a workshop. Our plan was to come back the next day and have a look around another gorge, but that meant another unsealed road. Since we had some time we decided to go and have a look at that road. If it was a bad as the one we'd just had to travel down we'd skip it. That would be a tough decision to take, given how far we'd come to see this park, but the risk to our car wasn't worth it.
Thankfully the next road was much better. The grader had clearly been down here and the surface was as good as unsealed roads get, which means it was perfectly passable with a 2 wheel drive car, provided you don't mind the dust. We headed back to our cabin at Tom Price with renewed optimism. A shower never felt so good - we were both filthy!