Exmouth - Karijini NP - Kalgoorlie

Leaving Ningaloo Station early Thursday morning the three hour trip back out to the main road was as expected, slow, rough and bone jarring; eventually arriving at Exmouth mid afternoon. After booking into our accommodation, Mita as per usual tackled the washing while Leigh headed for the post office collecting the parts for the toilet. Returning to the van Leigh dismantled the toilet (he’s becoming quite the expert at playing with Loo’s), installed the new mechanism and presto, good as new – we’ve drawn the conclusion that the previous mechanism may well have been faulty from the outset as the new unit operates quite freely while the failed unit was always difficult.

Day two in Exmouth was shopping and sightseeing including taking a drive through the newly constructed canal estate - yes you read correctly, a canal estate. Considering the town’s population is barely 2500 we were blown away at the price being asked for real estate; a house and land on the canals were in the vicinity of $1m while quite ordinary houses in the town were fetching nearly $0.5m. The justification for these prices is something of a mystery considering there isn’t too much on offer in Exmouth other than the seasonal tourism trade, a couple of military establishments, and the fishing industry. I guess the demand must be there.

Leaving Exmouth our next destination was Karijini National Park located some seven hundred fifty kilometres away in the Pilbara region nestled in the Hamersley Ranges between Tom Price and Newman. The journey to Karijini was a two day affair with our first day’s travel being fairly boring and uneventful; we eventually stayed the night camped beside a dry river bed some one hundred kilometres west of Paraburdoo.

While this region of Australia is incredibly barren and inhospitable, the scenery is still magnificent especially when it is coupled with the wildflowers that were starting to appear everywhere.

Next morning we continued towards Paraburdoo eventually catching sight of the first of three massive iron ore mines that dominate this region. Following a quick drive around the township we proceeded to Tom Price, the location of a second massive iron ore mine where we stopped to refuel, visited the local tourist information centre and then set off for Karijini.

After settling into the Dales Gorge camping area within Karijini the next few days were spent exploring the various gorges and waterfalls within the park.

The “killer” was the second day when we tackled the Dales Gorge walk. Leaving early morning we headed for the eastern end of the gorge, descended down to Fortescue Falls followed by a short walk to Fern Pool, a lovely little pool fed by another waterfall and very popular for those wanting to have a swim. Dipping our toes into the water we cancelled any idea of donning our swimmers instead backtracking to Fortescue, clambering down to the gorge floor and then tackling the three kilometre walk to the Circular Pool located at the opposite end of the gorge that supposedly takes three hours.

Eventually arriving at the Circular Pool (and in under three hours) we again cancelled any ideas of a swim although it was quite a beautiful setting being fed by another waterfall and surrounded by fern lined cliffs.
Leaving the Circular Pool, we soon realized that there was only one way out and that was straight up a one hundred metre escarpment (and I do mean straight up) that in part involved climbing a steel ladder.

Five hours later we returned to the van totally exhausted.


Awakening the following morning with every muscle in our lower torso telling us “no more”, day three of our stay at Karijini was purely sightseeing and photography. First stop was Weano Gorge some fifty kilometres away viewing the spectacular gorge scenery and while we briefly looked at each other contemplating clambering down to explore it that was as far as the thought process went. Working our way back we visited Joffre Falls where we had a bird’s eye view of a young couple braving the icy waters below. Following Joffre Falls we paid quick visits to both Knox and Kalamina Gorges eventually returning to camp mid afternoon.

Our departure from Karijini heralded the commencement of our return journey home with our first planned major stop being the gold mining city of Kalgoorlie fifteen hundred kilometres south. First stop after Karijini was the mining town of Newman where we collected our mail; we did have plans of doing a tour of the iron ore mine at Newman, the worlds largest open cut mine however that plan didn’t eventuate as the tour required a minimum of four persons and since there was no one else in sight, that plan was scuttled.

Other than the mine tour there really isn’t too much else in Newman to attract tourists and with that we pushed on eventually camping beside the all but dry Gascoyne River some two hundred kilometres further south. Next morning we continued south to Meekatharra where our intention was to turn east towards Wiluna and then down to Kalgoorlie however that plan fell in a heap after receiving dubious reports that the dirt road we planned to tackle was in a questionable condition. Added to that the skies were starting to appear somewhat threatening hence not wouldn’t have been a smart move tackling outback dirt roads when there is the threat of rain.

With another plan having gone up in smoke we continued our southward trek overnighting with several other travellers beside the pretty Nallan Lake near the small town of Cue. After three to four weeks of living in temperatures in the low 30’s (Celsius) it was quite a shock to awaken to 8 degrees. Following the usual contest to see who was getting out of bed first (which I lost), the heater was turned on and the kettle put on the stove.

Next stop was the beautiful little town of Cue. The town was quite a surprise with all its well maintained historic buildings, lovely parks and gardens, and historic landmarks; it definitely lived up to the tourism brochures.

With the storms still hovering around we left Cue continuing towards Mount Magnet but it wasn’t long before we encountered the odd scattered shower, stopping briefly at Mount Magnet to refuel then turning east. Since leaving Cue our trip had slowed considerably as we were making regular stops viewing the scenery plus the wildflowers that were now becoming prolific.

 

Leaving Mount Magnet our progress didn’t improve with the wildflowers becoming even more abundant and our stops becoming more frequent.

 

With the storm clouds now looking decidedly dangerous we pulled over twenty kilometres east of Sandstone into the Peter Denny lookout that provided panoramic views across the plains for heavens knows how many kilometres. It wasn’t too long before the threatening storms that we had been dodging arrived with a vengeance continuing into the night.

The dawning of morning brought home the reality that we really were once again in the southern latitudes and once again Leigh gave in first, getting out of bed to put on the kettle plus turning on the heater. After again stopping a myriad of times to view the wildflowers we eventually arrived at Agnew, total population not too many and consisting of a pub plus several gold mines within kilometres. How a hotel in the middle of nowhere survives is something of a mystery.

Leaving the nearby mining community of Leinster after stopping briefly to refuel we happened upon a sign on the outskirts of the township advertising skimpily dressed barmaids at the Agnew hotel - mystery solved.

From Leinster we again turned south transiting the towns of Leonora and Menzies, eventually spending the night camped beside Niagara Dam near the ghost town of Kookynie. The dam has quite a colourful history being constructed by C.Y. O’Connor, a pioneering civil engineer responsible for quite a few major construction projects in West Australia including the Perth to Kalgoorlie water pipeline that at its time of construction was the longest fresh water pipeline in the world.


We eventually arrived in Kalgoorlie Sunday afternoon spending the next few days relaxing and being good tourists. Since our last visit to Kal there has been significant development within the city with new housing estates complete with mansions popping up everywhere. We were also impressed by the restoration work being carried out on many of the city’s major historical buildings with building after building being encased in scaffolding; several days later we learnt that a magnitude 5.5 earthquake rocked the city a year earlier damaging a large number of historical buildings which accounted for all the scaffolding.

Besides the historic buildings we also visited the red light district that is similar to Amsterdam's red light area but is probably nowhere near as classy – would you believe they even conduct historic (???) tours of the brothels.

We also visited the "Super Pit" gold mine operated by Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines.

And our favourite haunt while in Kalgoorlie had to be "The Dome".