This morning we left Cape Keraudren and travelled through Port Hedland to the Karijini National Park. The landscape changed quite dramatically when we got close to Karijini National Park outskirts. The land became mountainous instead of the flat desolate desert like landscape we had become used to, with beautiful hills carved out by ancient waters, quite amazing!
We pulled into the camp ground which we had chosen because generators were allowed so that we could run our air conditioning in the van, however it is now the off season and all but one of the camp grounds were closed, chained up not accessible and the only one open didn't allow generators! It is very hot in Karijini National Park at this time of the year. We found a shady camp site and opened up the caravan to try and air it out after hot day's travel with the slight breeze that was blowing through the park. With the windows open and the 12v fan blowing on high we all slept ok.
The next morning we walked to Dales Gorge to have a look around. With its beautiful escarpment and water running through the base of the gorge it was truly spectacular, but unfortunately for us the heat and the flys beat us, so we returned to our car and drove to Tom Price. Karijini NP is an area best visited early in the dry season to experience it's beauty in full.
Tom Price is a great little green oasis in the middle of nowhere! Built for the Rio Tinto mine and miners it is an awesome friendly community with schools, shops, Police and all other services. It felt like a community without crime, not sure if that's the case or not but it was great to experience! There is a state of the art public toilet there that you press a button to enter then when you press the button to close the door it says in an American accent, "The door is now locked, your maximum use time is ten minutes!" Then music comes on while you err, do your business and there is another button to dispense the toilet paper, automatic soap, water tap and hand dryer all in the same unit. While you are washing your hands the toilet flushes, if you're one of those grubby people that doesn't wash their hands then the toilet flushes when you open the door! It is strange writing about a toilet in my blog but it was a very unique experience!
After a coffee we drove to Paraburdoo, another mining town where we topped up with fuel before driving to Onslow for the night.