After Auski Roadhouse the road wound through some beautiful gorges, great photo opportunities, we stopped at a lookout and took quite a few. We were travelling through Karijini National Park.

We arrived at Tom Price early afternoon; Trevor had just walked Judy to work.

Once Trevor arrived home about 10 minutes later we spent the afternoon catching up and showing our photos. Judy and Trevor were neighbours of ours in Wangaratta. When our kids were little they went to school together.

Trevor took us for a walk around the town, it’s only a small place and everything is in walking distance. We called into Liquorland where Judy works to say hello.

Judy got home from work after 4pm and we went through lots of photos with her. Judy has been keenly following our trip on our website. They started travelling Australia and got as far as Western Australia and have stopped, but are looking forward to resuming again in a few years.

The four of us went out for a meal to Karijini Lodge. A lovely meal, you help yourself to the buffet and have as much as you like, including soup and dessert as well as mains.  Pam and Graham, friends of Judy and Trevor joined us for a meal.

After tea we all went back to Judy and Trevor’s and spent the evening chatting under the verandah in their yard.

We’ll stay with Judy & Trevor for probably about a week, they’ve made us feel very welcome.

THE VIEW OF THE MINE FROM THE TOP OF MOUNT NAMELESS

This morning we took Judy and Trevor’s four wheel drive out for a drive up the highest accessible mountain in Western Australia, Mount Nameless. It was very different to be travelling in a car.

From the top of the mountain there are views of the iron ore mine and the township. Tom Price is the highest town in Western Australia and we were on the highest mountain.

Tom Price only exists because of the mine; everyone either works at the mine or in providing services for the miners. A lot of people fly in to work at the mine then fly home again.

After our trip up the mountain we went to the Tourist Info centre to get some info on Karijini National Park and find out what else there is to see in the region.

Sunday, a new town, a new Ulysses group to ride with. Tom Price has a small newly formed Ulysses branch of which Trevor is a member, so we went for a ride this morning. We met early, 8.00am, to beat the heat, and we rode 79km to a nearby town, Paraburdoo for morning tea. It was a pleasant ride, there is some very scenic countryside in this area, and we had a nice chat with the few members who joined us for the ride.

There are some fabulous gorges in the park. First stop was Dales Gorge with a lookout over Circular Pool. Part of the rock wall of the gorge forms a semi circle around the crystal clear, turquoise water of the pond. There’s a walking track that goes into the gorge and down to the pool but we planned on visiting a few spots throughout the park and thought we’d save our energy for the spots with waterfalls so just took some photos from the top.

Next stop was Fortescue Falls a short drive down the road and in the same gorge. We descended the path deep down into the gorge to a pool with water cascading over the rocks into its cool clear water. One of the walls of the gorge has tree roots and ferns clinging to it and resembles a mural. Apparently just past this point is another pond, Fern Pool, which we didn’t find, we didn’t continue far enough along the path.

We had lunch, visited the information centre and then tossed up which road to take, we are going to visit the park again with Judy and Trevor on Wednesday, so I wanted to leave some to look at with them. We decided that seeing as we were in a four wheel drive we’d take the dirt road and see what we found.

The first sign that we came across pointed to ? Gorge, 6km away, so we turned down there for a look. Another rocky path descending down into a red walled gorge where a pond had formed on the creek that meanders through.

This pond also had a waterfall and there were a couple standing beneath it enjoying its cool water. This waterfall was tucked in a dark corner and the water tumbles over the step like rock formations of the dark grey layers of iron ore.

This was a long winding gorge that drew us through always wondering what was around the next bend. It was quite a beautiful spot, we were hopping from one side of the creek to the other crossing little cascades, and walking between the tall red walls that nature has taken thousands of years to carve into the earth.

Over 100 photos on the camera and less than half of Karijini seen we headed for home.

Graham and Pam invited us over for dinner. Graham is a chef and loves to cook, he went all out and had a fabulous meal prepared for us followed by his specialty a Greek Christmas Tree Cake, which is profiteroles filled with caramel custard and formed into a tree shape held together with cream, strawberries and marshmallows and drizzled with chocolate. He made a grand entrance with the cake alight with sparklers.

On the way to Hamersley Gorge we drove up Mount Sheila where there are spectacular 360° views.

Hamersley Gorge

is another beautiful spot in Karijini National Park; the walls of the gorge consist of wave like layers of rock in tones of reds and purples.

The creek covers the entire floor area of the gorge in most places, so the best way to travel through this gorge is via the water. There are a couple of spots where you can gradually walk into the water and it stays fairly shallow and other places where the ground drops away and the water is cold and deep. We went swimming and swam downstream around a bend for a look and upstream we climbed over the rocks of a small waterfall and into another pond.

We had some biscuits and dip while sitting relaxing and enjoying the gorge before climbing out of the gorge and up to the car and heading for Wittenoom.

How many people can say they’ve had a picnic lunch in an asbestos mine? That’s just what we did today. We drove through a scenic valley to a place where a mining town used to exist and had our lunch.

Wittenoom Gorge was mined for asbestos from 1938 until 1966 when there weren’t enough ore reserves to make it worthwhile. After the mine closed many resident left and the remaining residents built a thriving tourist industry, until the WA government decided to close the town. It’s now just a tiny town with more kangaroos than people and as each person moves on the government buys the house and demolishes it. The statistics that the town present on asbestos danger are that 4.4 visitors every 25 years would die from mesothelioma whether they had visited Wittenoom or not.

Trevor found a couple of pieces of asbestos for us to have a look at; it’s a bluish coloured fibrous rock, sort of like it has blue cobwebs on it.

We stopped at Auski Roadhouse for a break on our way home. It was dark by the time we got back to Tom Price

ASBESTOS MINE

ASBESTOS

ON THE DRIVE HOME WE SAW A BUSTARD AND A BIT FURTHER ALONG THE ROAD A DINGO

NOTE: 10 NOVEMBER 2005 WE HEARD ON THE NEW TODAY THAT THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO CUT THE POWER TO WITTENOOM TO FORCE THE REMAINING PEOPLE LIVING THERE TO LEAVE

We then headed past Kings Lake a man made lake about 5km from the centre of Tom Price. It’s a nice spot to have a barbeque or picnic but the lake isn’t suitable for swimming.

We went out to Karijini Lodge for dinner with Judy & Trevor and Pam & Graham again.

First stop was Oxer and Junction Pools Lookouts. Several gorges meet at the point where these lookouts are located and they provide stunning views.

We then drove to Weano Gorge carpark and picnic area and went for a walk through Weano Gorge. It’s written in the guidebook that this gorge is an ideal introduction to the gorges of Karijini.

There’s a long gradual walk down into the gorge that gets a bit more difficult to traverse as you progress. Once down into the floor of the gorge you once again travel along a creek bed, there wasn’t much water in this one though.

We past a spot where some people were swimming and they suggested that the rest of the gorge was well worth a look. 

A bit further along the gorge changed from a Class 3 walk to a Class 5 walk. Class 3 requires a moderate level of fitness and the trail can be slightly modified with steps etc. Class 5 is mostly indistinct trails through undisturbed natural environments with rough terrain and a high level of fitness required (not too much fitness required for this one, we managed it).

It was well worth the effort of going further along the gorge. As we climbed through a narrow pass clinging to a metal handrail we came through into a wider space that was filled with cool clear water. To get down to the water was another climb this time down a knotted rope. We decided that as we weren’t going to swim we’d just sit at the end of the handrail and enjoy the gorge. There were a couple of girls swimming in this gorge. There’s no way you can continue further through this gorge and remain dry, you’d at least have to wade through the water if not swim.

We took a shorter way out of the gorge via a stone stairway that led up to the carpark, steep, but much shorter than the way we’d entered.

Back to the car and we drove to Joffre Falls Lookout, no water on this one but still well worth a look, only a 200m walk from the carpark to the lookout.

Continuing on in the car we went another 5km to Knox Gorge where there’s another lookout. There are a lot of trees and shrubs around the creek at the bottom of this gorge and there were many people below enjoying the shade and swimming in the creek.

It was about 3pm when we arrived back in Tom Price. We’ve now seen most o the gorges in Karijini, all different and all well worth visiting.

We’ve enjoyed our stay with Judy and Trevor they’ve made us feel really welcome.

Tom Price is an interesting place; it’s fairly well equipped for a small place. They have a swimming pool and good sporting facilities and a reasonable range of shops. I’d never seen a house without guttering before we came here. There are heaps of corellas around the town. The topic of conversation among the people of the town seems to be about work and how long people are staying here, everyone seems to be temporarily here.

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