Days 101 - 104, Bush, Roadkill & Karajini

After listening to Colin & Jo talk about Karajini National Park, it became a 'must see' place whilst we were in WA. Despite warnings of high temperatures and the thought of a 1400 km journey, we departed around 9am on Sunday morning. The mystery machine performed best about 100km per hour, meaning that we would have over 14 hours of driving to do. In Oz the distances our massive and it is advisable not to drive at night as this is when the wildlife takes over the highway. The likelihood of hitting a Kangaroo or other creature after dark and seriously damaging your car are massive, so best avoided. Our trip took us North of Perth, through the wheat belt and into the seemingly unending bush. After a day's driving through several small towns, we were 200km's short of Newman, an old mining town. The drive is very non descript and there is alot of nothingness. The small towns have residents numbered in hundreds and are over 250+ km appart, so it is vital to fill up with fuel before heading on.

It was a further 5 hours drive on our second day to get Karajini just outside Tom Price, crossing the Tropic of Capricorn along the way. Tom Price has got an excellent visitors and information centre, so we collected a couple of free maps from here and listed to the staff talk about the best gorges. After walking along gorges, we would come upon a beautiful clear pool of water surrounded by red rock & so deep it would be impossible to guess! The sight of this alone made the journey worth while. We went to the gorges early in the morning and were the only people there. We were able to swim and experience this incredible scenery together. There were waterfalls into the gorges and we had expected cold water, thankfully the pools were warm. We focused on Hamersley Gorge & Dales Gorge, both accessible in the mystery machine. There are others which require 4x4 to access.

Return trip down the coast, stopping overnight at Carnarvon. We watched a beautiful sunset at the mile long pier and had planned to stay there for the night, until some locals moved told us that we weren't allowed to stay there, and we had to move down the road slightly. Another 6 am start got us on the road for home early. It would be another full day of driving to get us back to Rockingham. Stops along the way this time

Top tips for a trip to Karajini:

1) Take enough time - We would suggest 4 days for driving and 2 to 3 days for exploring.
2) Make sure you have enough water. Temperatures reach 40C (100+F) with a dry heat. We each drank a litre every 2 hours during the day.
3) Start your days early as there are less road trains, and if you start driving at 6, you will cover much more distance in the day.
4) Take fly nets/mossie net for your head. There are loads of flys and this is the only thing that will keep them off.


My parents arrive for Christmas on 22 December, so next update will include Christmas and the end of our WA trip.

Happy Christmas to everyone, Love Michael and Sarah xxxx

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