It’s the 17 June and we’re headed for a week in WA’s second largest National Park. It’s so big I have to split the blog post in two. This part will cover Saturday through to Tuesday and the next does Wednesday to Friday morning. We stayed at Dales Campground Sunday to Thursday with free camps before and after.

The road south from Port Hedland was good with a steady stream of road trains heading north. Our first night was just on the edge of Karijini at Albert Tognolini Rest Area. It’s a great spot, which is lucky as it is our anniversary. We celebrated by having a campfire and toasted marshmallows. The next morning we hiked to the top of the hill. A little further than we expected, but some nice views anyway.

Upon arrival at the Info Centre at Karijini we learned some of the gorges on the western side were closed due to forecast rain. Luckily Dales Gorge was still open so we had a quick preview Sunday afternoon and then hiked the gorge on Monday. This was a great introduction to Karijini and we loved the rock hopping and the rich colours.

The rain came through on Monday evening and continued into Tuesday morning. It eased up enough later for us to head across to Kalamina Gorge. This was a great gorge with interesting ledges along the creek. We decided to try our new rock shoes as we got deeper into the gorge. Karen and Liz also braved the pool at the end.

After Kalamina we headed around to Joffre Falls. We could only get to the lookout as the gorge was closed along with Knox Gorge. So we then stopped off at the Eco Resort for coffee and muffins before heading back to camp along the corrugated and now muddy Banjima Drive.