Karijini NP

Karijini NP is in the Pilbra not far from Tom Price. It is beautiful. We went on many walks to beautiful gorges with very cold swimming pools. The one below is Circular Pool in Dales Gorge.

Fern Pool at the other end of Dales Gorge

Fortesque Falls in the middle of Dales Gorge - a favourite - had a few swims here with doubled as a bath for some!!!! The water is freezing but once you are in for a minute you are totally numb and it is quite comfortable.

 Fortesque falls - the water is warmer under the falls

 Handrail Pool in Weana Gorge Karijini NP
A bit of an adventerous walk this one. A class 5 walk with rain the previous day, made things a bit slippery. We had to wade through water up to our chests- so basically a swim -very cold and then hopping about on slippery rocks and you come to a narrowing in the gorge (see below) which drops off into handrail pool - see the handrail bolted to the side of the rock. We used this handrail to climb down into the pool. Tony went first and his feet slipped out from underneath him - bit of a scary moment!
It is very dramatic looking up out of this gorge. To continue on you must have abseiling equipment etc.

 Walking down into the gorge

Barn Hill

Barn Hill is a cattle property about 130klms south of Broome on the beach. A bush camp with open air showers, beautiful beaches and lots of time to relax.

Jeremy opening the gate on the way into Barn Hill

Beach at Barn Hill

 Red Cliffs onto the beach -Barn Hill

Dampier Peninsula

We stayed at Middle Lagoon - 180klms north of Broome on the Dampier Peninsula. Natures hideaway it is called. Paradise. The water is sooooo clear - makes it really easy to spot the Crocs(just joking). Did see quite a few reef sharks off the rocks- the fishing is excellent here. There are so few people living up here the fish supplies are still plentiful. Tony caught a really nice spangled emperor and a tuskfish -and lost about $100 worth of tackle! There were hardly any people here - we had the beach to ourselves most of the time.

Campsite at Middle Lagoon

King brown snake on the road in to middle lagoon - about 2.5m long -scary even from the car. Middle Lagoon is run by the Aboriginal community and the kids that live here are free to roam wherever they want- swimming, playing spotlight -great life. When I told them about the snake, the mum said that they killed one the same size a couple of months earlier - she said that they usually get baby browns which the kids kill........but the 2.5m ones they leave to the adults!

 Road into Middle Lagoon - was a bit washed out in a few spots -keeps the grey nomads at Broome!!!!

One Arm Point is at the tip of the Peninsula and they have a hachery there. They breed nemos etc for Aquariums. The kids loved it because they could feed the green turtles (jasmine below), barra, touch sea anenomes and star fish. Jeremy fed a barra and it jumped out of the water and made a really loud slap as it took the fish - scared the life out of him - very funny.

Beagle Bay is an aboriginal community and has this amazing church made of mother of pearl and lots of different shells - very beautiful. Was built and decorated by monks and the aboriginal people in 1917

This is a picture of Cape Leveque east beach. Another perfect spot.


 This is Cape Leveque west beach. Famous for red cliffs onto white beaches aganist very blue clear ocean. Featured on Qantas adds. Spectacular.

Broome

Broome was great. Some people we have met along the way hate Broome -not sure why??? We had an adventure packed time here. We did a fishing charter onthe spur of the moment. So much fun. Jeremy and I spewed for the first few hours, but that didn't stop us catching fish. Around lunch the wind died off and the sea became calm,we stopped spewing and the fishing took off. We had a ball. Tony had a big one on, he was bringing it in and a huge bronze whaler(shark) about 2.5m long launched itself fully out of the water and just ripped the fish off the line. It all happened about 20m from the boat - what an amazing sight. This happened about 4 times. We caught heaps of fish but threw most back- there is only so much you can store/eat. It was a lot of fun. Tuna jumping out of the water, sea snakes - great day.

Relaxing on Cable Beach and watching the kids in the distance. What a beautiful place. We didn't really want to leave.

The obligatory sunset camel ride on cable beach - a camel ride is always fun!

Horizontal waterfall

The trip to the horizontal waterfalls was great. The kids were very excited - sea plane etc. Once we landed inTalbot bay we got on a speed boat and went through one of the horizontal waterfalls. The first one ( in the distance of the photo below) is about 20m wide and the current and whirl pools created by this one were amazing. The second one is 7m wide and was about 2.5m high- it can get up to 5m on really big king tides. The guide wouldn't take us over that one. He said he has been over it when it was about that size and it scared the pants off him. When at it's peak, water pours through at a rate of 1 million liters per minute. Pretty amazing. An impressive sight. THe next morning when the 7m wide one was a bit tamer (1m) we went through it on the speed boat. This boat has 2 x 300HP motors and is very fast. Very exhilarating. The kids couldn't stop screaming!

 The photo below is the bay just after sunrise. It is a very remote and beautiful place. The houseboat we stayed on was very nice and the stars at night were of course spectacular. They were even burning off so the hills in the distance were ablaze and reflecting on the water. Would do this again.

Local lemon sharks - they have a shark cage that you can swim in  to get a closer look.