We got up fairly early and headed the 100km into Karajini National Park.  I’d thought that the roads were all dirt in here, but we were on bitumen all the way up to the campground itself.  We did an extremely basic setup, pretty much just popped the roof and got the fridge going on gas.

We were keen to get stuck into the various walks around the area.  A quick discussion soon had a route mapped out and off we went.  All the trails are graded 1 to 6.  Class 6 requires rockclimbing and/or abseiling equipment.  The others decrease in difficulty until the easiest, in here, is a class 2.  A class 2 is just a walk through the bush with a few obstacles on marked trails.

We were in Dales Campground, Cockatoo Loop section, due to wanting to use a generator.  We walked from there down to the Fortesque Falls Carpark and then took the class 3 trail down to the falls themselves.

The kids HAD to have a swim and were paddling around to cool off as soon as we arrived.  We thought that this was a fantastic spot … but we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Next stop was about 300m upstream.  Fern Pool.  Even Mum and Dad had to have a swim in this one!  Absolutely magical.  Clear water … cold, but lets not talk about that … small fish in it too.  A waterfall over a ledge, so you can climb up in behind the falls.  Of if you like, you can paddle around underneath where the falls enter the main pool.  Not too many people there either.

Once we cooled off we had to backtrack to Fortesque Falls and continue along the class 4 route for about 2km.  The class 4 routes require a bit of rock scrambling and are only marked point to point … not that you can get lost down in the gorge.  You’re on rails.  The trail markers do give a bit of a hint as to the best way to tackle some of the obstacles though.

As we approached Circular Pool there were shouts of OMG from up the front of the line.  When we got up there we were all a bit incredulous.  There was a bride up there in the full regalia.  Apparently she wasn’t too happy about only getting to wear it on her wedding day and was planning on wearing it whilst doing all the gorges in Karajini.  And here we were sweating away after our hot walk!  Full points to her for originality.

Circular Pool is absolutely freezing and although the kids jumped in and swam to the other side, only my ankles got wet here.  That was enough to chill me sufficiently.  Blake managed to cut his foot on a rock on the far side and had to swim back bleeding.  A theme to be repeated as he was in the wars the entire time we were at Karajini, as you’ll all read.

Even though I’d brought my backpack with all manner of stuff in it along, I didn’t have a first aid kit in it inexplicably.  Everything else was in there!

We backtracked a little bit and climbed back up to the top of the gorge to have a look at them from Three Ways Lookout.  A bit further around we also got to look at Circular Pool from above too.  We finished the 6.6km walk by returning to the camp site along the top of the gorge.

Little white dot down the bottom is the bride yet to climb out

We were buggered!  Such awesome scenery though.  The photos don’t do it justice.

I had to do an 18km round trip to get some water as there is no water available at the campground.  I got 40 litres in two solar showers.  One for turning into drinking water and the other for a shower tomorrow.

Dinner was a BBQ.  Steak and snags.  We watched some old TV shows, thanks to the generator, before retiring about 9pm.

Karajini Sunset

Couldn’t choose between these two photos

Moonrise over Karajini with the Billy on the boil

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