01/10/18 Karijini

01/10/18 This morning at 7.30, Pete from The Flying Sandgroper delivered a 4WD for us to use.  Here is Pete with his transport back home.

Pete guides tours in Karijini National Park, but his next was tomorrow, and we didn't want to wait.  (The motel is expensive, not that good, the town isn't too fascinating).  He gave us the good oil on what to see in Karijini.
So we set off, Ken driving, John navigating.
The road to the park is sealed.  Some of the roads inside the park are bloody awful dirt and rock.  Corrugations and rocks are popular features of them.
However, we survived and had a great day.
Here is our trusty steed for the day, an Isuzu dual cab.  Pete had added an esky with a frozen 10L water bottle in it for us.

Here is one of the termite mounds common to the area.  They are very tough.

Below are lots of photos taken in the park.  Magnificent gorges, pools, colours, rock formations... the camera simply doesn't do them justice at all.  We drove to all the places Pete suggested, and had lunch at the Eco retreat in the park.  Our chicken salad wraps were quite nice, but more disinterested staff would be hard to find.  John's cappucino was $6!

We didn't do the long walk, just a short one.

 We were taken by the lovely pattern and colours on the trunk of this tree.

 Where the gorges come together.

You had to wade or swim, if you wanted to walk through lots of these gorges.
The experienced folk had rubber shoes to change into, like divers wear.

This was a lovely shaded spot we sat and contemplated for some time.  The birds here were willy wagtails and some small birds too far away to identify, but no doubt seed eaters of some kind.  Colourful dragonflies darted about and water-boatmen ran races in the pond.

These signs were at every gorge.  Presumably they don't want drone flyers falling off cliffs while concentrating on their drone, or trying to retrieve a crashed one.  I'd taken my drone, but it stayed in the car.

An example of the lookouts.  The end was an opening gate (locked).  We assumed that its to ease retrieval of fallen bodies!

 John was taken by the simple construction of the long-drop toilets.

After driving round in the park, we drove to Hammersley gorge (as instructed by Pete), both to see the gorge and view the ranges.

 Amazing colours.

 And amazing ripples in the rock.

On the drive back through the Hammersley ranges, John took this photo.
Good view of the range, with lovely cloud & sky colours, blotted only by a bald guy.

After that we drove back and had a snack tea with a couple of beers.  We were both stuffed.