Onslow / Tom Price / Karijini National Park
We left Karratha and headed down the coast to a little place called Onslow which is about 320km from Karratha. It’s a lovely little town right on the coast and a fisherman’s dream as the fishing is supposedly really fantastic here. It has a fantastic boardwalk along the waters edge overlooking the 1.3km Onslow jetty used by Onslow Salt. The boardwalk also has the the famous Diggers Badge War memorial that the sun shines through on sun rise (We were too lazy to get up and go and check this out !!!). We stayed at the Ocean View Caravan Park which was right on the beachfront and the boardwalk ran right past it – beautiful spot. Well worth a visit for a couple of days.
After two nights at Onslow we drove 580km to Tom Price. It happened to be extremely windy as it usually is when we have to travel a big distance !! So as you can imagine the fuel gauge seemed to be dropping dramatically and we ended up having to stop 20km from Paraburdoo to use our 10litre of spare diesel that we luckily carry around. Of course when we got to Paraburdoo which is still about 90km from Tom Price they happened to be digging up the service station and the only diesel was high flow, so we had to use our handy (NOT) little funnel to get enough fuel to get up to Tom Price. (There was a lot of swearing and cursing as the funnel doesn’t exactly do what its meant to do !!!). Anyway we managed to get to Tom Price to be then put in a small unpowered site for two nights that was barely big enough to fit the van in !!! The first night it rained so everything then turned to mud – beautiful !!! It did clear up and we headed out to Karijini for a look at Dales Gorge which is also home to the Fortescue Falls, Circular Pool and Fern Pool. What a beautiful walk along the top of the gorge and then down into the gorge and back to the Falls. Highly recommend this walk.
The next day we headed out to Hamersley Gorge, which should have been a reasonably quick drive out but I didn’t read the map correctly and we ended up going the long way around !!! But it didn’t take long to get back to the caravan at the end of the day !!! The Gorge it beautiful and you walk down all these stair to the most beautiful series of spectacular rock formations and swimming spots. It was a bit cold for us to venture in but the views of the gorge were amazing.
We shifted into a powered site in the caravan park for the last few nights, which much to Jeff’s delight meant we could finally use the coffee machine. It seems that our invertor had decided it didn’t like the amount of amperage needed by the coffee machine and so that meant back to the instant stuff (YUCK!!)
Weano Gorge was a beautiful walk down stairs and then through the gorge that had a beautiful little creek flowing through it – spectacular rock formations. After this walk you walk about another 100m to beautiful Hancock gorge which is a little bit more hairy to walk through as you climb down some very steep steps and ladders to the gorge, then you venture about 50m before reaching a pool which you have to Wade through to get to the next section. On the next section you clamber over rocks and along the rock face to get to the middle section until you get to the Amphitheatre, here you can have a break before deciding if you are going to make the journey into Kermits Pool. We chickened out and stopped here as the next section was a narrow passage over rocks and into water waist height but the part we had done was good fun and the scenery was just so beautiful and well worth the adventure. We didn’t climb down into Joffre Falls as we ran out of time but from the lookout above if looked stunning as the waterfall curved around and it had the most amazing looking pool below it. It would have been amazing to have swam in here but alas we had run out of time. We also did a quick drive to Knox Gorge and again didnt have the time to go into the gorge but visited the lookout, which was closed so we had to walk to the side of it to stare down into the most stunning chasm. Oh but of course Jeff had to wander right to the edge and lay down to try and outdo me for the best shot !!! Karijini is certainly a spectacular place and one which you could spend weeks and not days exploring its many beautiful gorges. This would definitely be a place to come back and spend lots more time. I can understand why people book extended periods of time in the National Park (something which we were told books out in minutes once they release the sites at the beginning of each year !!!)
Whilst in Tom Price we did the Rio Tinto Mine tour which is a must when visiting the area. Great tour of the huge mine and the guide is a very knowledgeable fellow who know his stuff that’s for sure. Awesome to see the big hole in the ground and the huge machinery that is used to operate the mine.
Next stop Exmouth………
