Wednesday morning we were all up
bright eyed and bushy tailed ready for a big day of adventure. We started with a walk through the car parks
and over to the lookout overlooking Fortescue Falls. From here it was a rapid descent down the
side of the rocky hill. Our first stop
was at Fern Pool which is a special place for the aboriginals as, due to their
stories, it was created by a great serpent.
The sign did ask that when swimming, that you enter the water quietly by
using the ladder. However, before we had
a chance to discuss this, Josh was stripped down and diving on it – the way
that Josh does. Mick and all the kids
decided to enjoy the lovely cool water too so in they all went swimming over to
the waterfall. Sue and I however,
decided that we’d wait for the sunshine to warm us up a little more before we
would go swimming. Once everyone was
dressed again we set off past Fortescue Falls which were cascading gently over
the rocks and into the large pool below.
Our walk continued and the sun was really beaming down as we wandered
further into Dales Gorge. At the end of
this very pretty trek we landed ourselves at Circular Pool. The kids clambered in and you could see by
how slow they were getting in, that the water was icy cold. The adults were all next in and it was bloody
freezing. Sue and I and some of the kids
swam over to the waterfall simply to warm up by moving around, but once a few
photos had been taken we were back out of there really quickly. Our sin was covered in goose bumps and even
had a red tinge to it due to the water being so cold. We had lunch here and then continued on. A short walk back the way that we came from, and
we veered to another track which took us back up the very steep side of the
mountain towards the Three Ways Lookout where we could actually look down over
the Circular Pool. We hadn’t realised at
the time that there was a lookout above this swimming hole so lucky we didn’t
go skinny dipping. Our return walk was
along the rim of the gorge that we’d just been walking in. This took us back to the lookout over
Fortescue Falls and then back to our camps.
After a bit of relaxing back at camp, we waited for the heat to die off
a bit before we all walked back to the Fern Pool where we could all go for a
refreshing dip. The water was fantastic
and cool and sitting under the waterfall was even a little warm. After a good cool down it was time to return
to camp to get dinner organised. Little
did we realise how hard the hike up the hill would be. It was a long way and again very steep (as
you’d expect trying to climb out of a gorge) and the rocks / steps were about
knee high – so it took quite a bit of effort to climb back out. We could have done with another swim by the
time we reached the top. It was fairly
late by the time we’d eaten dinner and cleaned up so we all hit our beds pretty
early in preparation for another busy workout day tomorrow.
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The following morning, our legs (surprisingly)
were feeling good so we were ready after breakfast to hit the rocky paths
again. We were driving to two big gorge
walks today, the first was Weano Gorge, but first we had to check out Oxer
Lookout. It was simply stunning!! The gorges from this lookout appear to go on
forever and it’s a bloody long way to the bottom. It is such a challenging
area, that at this lookout lies a Celtic cross in memory of a rescue worker
that died whilst undergoing a rescue operation which took place in Hancock
Gorge almost ten years ago. This walk
began with a fairly flat descent but gradually got a bit hairier. We stopped at the first water crossing and
took off our shoes, socks and shorts to wade through the waist height water
before climbing along the side of a rock wall endeavouring to hold on tight
with our fingertips to avoid falling back into the icy cold water. However, after putting our gear back on and
walking a bit further along we came to another water crossing and figured that
keeping our shoes on would be more time efficient and a little easier on our
feet with the sharp rocks underfoot. The
gorge narrowed and we had more scaling of walls to traverse along and the
cliffs surrounding us were thousands of layers of thin rock all pressurised
together – it was really quite amazing and pretty! We decided to leave our bags at this point
and just take our cameras as we continued on the walk. It wasn’t long and we reached the most
difficult section of Weano Gorge, a Class 5 walking track!! The adrenalin was pumping and Sami’s fear
began to set in. We were looking at an
extremely narrow section of gorge with water running along the rocks under our
feet. At the end of this narrow section
was a handrail drilled into the rock work to help us along BECAUSE the gorge
opened up and dropped away into what appeared to be a large arena which housed
a very cold pool of water. The 5 kids
were all doing a fantastic job and enjoying the challenges that this walk were
throwing at them but Sami’s fear was building on this walk. The Woods’ family went first and got down
safely – our turn. Josh and Zoe went
first and Sami and I followed, it was a constant reassurance to Sami that she
was able to do this and to simply take her time, grip onto the handrail tightly
and shuffle her feet along the slippery ground to ensure she wasn’t going to
slide straight down. We got near to the
drop away section and I climbed past Josh so he could finish helping her down the
handrail safely. She made it – but we
weren’t at the end yet! In order to
reach the end of the actual gorge we had to swim through the freezing cold pool
of water which then continued through another narrow section of water to the
end. We jumped in and cold is an understatement,
we were constantly shivering! The girls
wanted to get out but I just kept convincing them that the faster that we swam,
the faster we could go back and get out (even though we didn’t have clothes or
towels with us – they were back at the drop off area with our bags). We just had to keep moving to get to the end
so that we could say we did it and it felt really good for us all to achieve
such a challenging walk! It was time to
swim back and Sami was arguing with me, she just didn’t want to get back in the
cold water. But, it was either stay
there where she was already shaking or get back in and swim back, climb the
rail and back out of the gorge to find our clothes – she jumped in the water! We made our way back through the many water
holes, picked up our clothes and towel, and continued on our journey back out
of the gorge – quite chuffed!! The next
part of our day was heading into another gorge, this time it was Hancock
Gorge. Another difficult one which reached
a Class 5 hike. We set off with the
lovely Woods’ family again climbing deep down into the gorge before reaching a
ladder that we had to climb down, no problem.
Again, we had many water crossings and similar scaling of rock ledges
and walls, our fingers were getting a good workout, not to mention the rest of
our bodies. An amphitheatre appeared
where we decided to sit and wait for another group to climb out of the end of
the gorge – which meant we would have the pool at the end to ourselves for a
little while. It was a lovely sunny spot
to sit and get warm, tall red and black gorge surrounding us along with a very
small waterfall to sit and admire. Once
the coast was clear, our two families wandered into Spider Walk, named aptly
due to the fact that you need to hold the side walls with your hands and your
feet and climb above the flowing water just like a spider – that was a bit of
fun. At the end the ground beneath us
slowly slipped away forming a small waterfall which the kids had fun sliding
along and then into the lovely pool below (warmer than that at Handrail
Pool). Josh was first in – no surprise
there – and then the rest of us followed!
We had quite a while alone enjoying the pool before another group joined
in, it was a great spot as long as you didn’t go past the danger sign to the
next level below, and we all obeyed these rules. We began our journey back out through Spider
Walk, Josh carrying Sami over his shoulder along the slimy ground which I
shuddered at. Back through the water
spots and over and along the rock walls til we reached safety once more. On our drive back to camp this afternoon, we
called in to EcoRetreat to see if we were missing out on anything but it was
really just another camp ground but it did have a restaurant and bar a few
other comforts. We picked up some ice
creams and made our way home. After
dinner tonight, the Woods family and ourselves sat down to an entertaining game
of Family Trivial Pursuit in pairs. Well
done to the two ten year olds Zoe and Samuel for winning the game, even though
the rest of the teams had an adult. We
all slept well tonight…..
Our final full day in Karijini
consisted of, you guessed it, more walking!
Today we had Knox Gorge, Joffre Gorge and Kalamina Gorge in our
sights. First up the nice, “easy”, Class
4 walk of Knox Gorge. Again the lookout
was something special so we grabbed the usual pictures before travelling in a
southerly direction to the earth’s core, nearly straight down again. This time however, underfoot was a lot of
loose rocks which made it quite a challenge not to slip over. The rock cliffs were again layers and layers
compound against each other and appeared to be like building blocks all stacked
on top of each other due to the straight edges.
There was also more water, but this time we didn’t have to wade through
it, we were able to stick like glue to the rock edges and manoeuvre our way
past. It took us much less time on the
way in than the trek estimate of 1.5hrs each way. We reached the end and there was a lovely
swimming spot, this time surrounded by rounded edged layered rocks, but being
quite early in the morning, I chose to stay out this time. I’m sure you can guess who was first in. All the boys went swimming while us girls
looked on. Josh even ventured down towards
the Class 6 area, the very narrow end of the gorge passed the DANGER (Gorge
Risk Area) sign to have a closer look and get some photos. We had our morning tea and started to make
our way back outwards and upwards. It
was a steep climb but slow and steady won the race. We had a breather at the top and then made
our way across to the Joffre Gorge lookout.
Again it was amazing, the view below us was amazing and the water was so
green! I was looking forward to a swim
at this stage but seeing the bright green water turned me off a little. This walk was meant to be a Class 4 and 5 and
supposedly would take us 4 hours round trip – off we started to see how we
compared to the normal. We made a start
on the walk, this time the rock surrounding us was quite square and bulky. We got to about half way down the gorge which
meant we were passing the top of the flowing waterfall. From here the track got a bit trickier and an
adult took the lead, I remained at the back as the anchor. We all very carefully climbed down some steep
descents, the kids with a bit of help from the longer legged adults. Eventually, we made it to the bottom where
the lovely crystal clear pool sat but as it was in the shade, it was looking quite
cool. I tossed my shoes to the side and
went off for a paddle, it was way too cool to dunk right under though. After a bit of lunch and enjoying our
surrounds, we got packed up and started the journey back out. We were all a little amused when Samuel went
racing along the edge of the rocks and had a slight slip right into the fairly
shallow pool of water next to it. He was
very quick to stumble back out (until he had to fetch Susan’s sunglasses). We made it back out of the entire gorge in
good time, well within the 4 hour recommended time. This in turn left us with plenty of time to
head to Kalamina Gorge which was not meant to be too difficult. This was a 3km return walk but was not too
steep or dangerous, really a fairly easy walk compared to the previous
ones. We started with the pool on our
right at the bottom but decided not to swim here and instead look further down
the left end of the gorge to find somewhere for a late afternoon swim. It was an extremely pretty walk but we
struggled to find a lovely deep pool here to cool in. We thought about returning to camp and
heading to the Fern Pool for a dip but the climb back up would have been way
too much effort after our last three days.
Instead we got back to camp, had a bit of a wash and enjoyed a few quiet
drinks chatting about the wonderful places that we’ve seen and in great company
of new friends as well as all that we and our kids (at the ages of 7, 8, 9, and
two 10 year olds) have achieved to get through these walks safely. It has been truly fantastic!
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