We went for an early morning walk before breakfast just on sunrise around the beachfront & river entrance at Cooke Point, fortunately the tide was out & all of the seashells were exposed for us to browse.  The wave patterns make a really beautiful impression on the sand & with the low tides & the big beaches it seemed to stretch forever.  The Port Hedland harbour was the next stop where we saw a couple of ships being loaded with iron ore plus a dredge boat heading out to dump its load.   This is one of the busiest ports in Australia & the council (funded by BHP Billiton) have built a nice park overlooking the harbour.

On the road again to the Pilbera region heading to Karijini National Park, long empty roads, for the first time it sort of felt we were in the desert, with some absolutely beautiful scenery at times. We did come across some massive mining machinery being moved on a couple of very long trailers with lots of wheels.  The traffic on the road was held up for ages until there was an opportunity for the traffic to pass at things like truck stops.  These trucks with the machinery took up ALL of the road.  We were very fortunate to come across one just as they had stopped to let all of the traffic around them.  We stopped at a very remote roadhouse, Munjina to refuel, just before (about 30km) the turnoff to Karinjini.

We are blessed, bitumen all the way into Karijini. (usually we had to drive on dreadful dirt roads to get somewhere nice). We booked into the Dales Campground for a couple of nights.  The setup took very little time in our own little private niche isolated from other campers.  We were ready for our gorge walk in no time flat.  The well maintained track took us first to the Circular Pool lookout – it’s a very long way down & absolutely stunning.  We kept on following the track around to the Fortescue Falls lookout, the scenery is magnificent.  The reds of the rocks & soil offset by the pristine white of the gum tree trunks, the green leaves & silver of the spinifex are magnificent.  Again, photos just do not do justice to how stunning the Dales Gorge looks.  We walked down the very steep steps into Fortescue Falls & along to the Fern Pool, the small falls, the colour of the water, the trees & shrubs around the water all combine to make this one of the prettiest sights we have seen.  It was getting late & when the sun starts to set daylight goes very quickly here, we didn’t go in for a swim because we had to get out of the gorge before dark.  The climb back out was a challenge as it is very steep & the steps are high, so for anyone vertically challenged (Tereza) it is very hard work lifting the legs up the height of the steps, it’s hard enough work for me with long legs.

We got back to camp just as the sun was setting & Tereza cooked a wonderful roast dinner with John & Sue supplying the vegies & salad.  The red was a very pleasant – Arundel.  It’s nice being back in a bush camp & enjoying a nice night with our friends.