Our next camp took us 600km from Exmouth, and into the Karijini National Park. Given the rain which had fallen over the Pilbara region towards the end of our stay in Exmouth, we decided to use a cloudy day for a long day on the road and covered around 500km to get us close to the National Park. In the absence of any real options in this part of the country, we found a gravel area to the side of the road and set up camp for the night.

Continuing our journey the next morning, we drove through the mining town of Paraburdoo and towards Tom Price which is set on the edge of the Karijini National Park. We had originally intended on camping at Dales campground in the Park itself but the rain had caused chaos and many roads closed so we opted for the caravan park in Tom Price for a few nights to let the weather sort itself out. Also a good chance to get the car serviced as mining towns have no shortage of mechanics! Setting up camp in Tom Price, we still had no idea what the area even looked like and the neighbouring van assured me there was a mountain there behind us….

Thankfully the cloud cleared the next morning and sure enough we started to see some of the magic of the area.

With only a couple of options open in the National Park, we opted for a drive out to Jijingunha (Joffre Gorge). From the lookout we could see down to the pools at the bottom, at which point the kids declared “we are totally going down there”!

I can imagine that on a beautiful, clear sunny day (and after no rain), the water in the gorge probably looks a lot clearer than it did but nothing will deter the kids from a bit of water – not even water temperature of maybe 16 degrees!

Day two and the clouds had disappeared. We are still surprised by how cold it has been in the morning, evening and overnight with temperatures getting down to a low of 8 degrees. It certainly feels cold after the 28 degree days on the coast! Day time has been sunny though and getting up to around 20 degrees – nice temperatures for a decent walk so we decided to tackle Mount Bruce.

With an elevation of 1,234m, Mount Bruce is WA’s second tallest peak. Along the ridge of the walk you get some pretty impressive views of the surrounding area, including the massive expanse of the Marandoo mine site. Excavation for iron ore for the overseas market began at the mine in 1994 and it’s still going strong today. We must have seen four trains leaving the mine site, each at least 1.5km long. After a bit of research, we found that some of the trains they use to transport the ore can be up to 2.5km long, consisting of up to 250 cars! Crazy to see the scale of things and this is only one of many mines in the Pilbara region.

The hike led to some pretty interesting rock scrambles.

Super proud of Finlay, conquering his fear of heights and scrambling round a rock face to keep going. The views as we climbed higher were certainly worth the effort and it was cool to look back and see the path we had taken along the ridge line.

We all made it safely back down the mountain and back into town and to our camp for late afternoon feeling like we had certainly done our exercise for the day!

For our final outing in Karijini, we opted for Kalamina Gorge and a chance to take a short, 3km stroll along the floor of a gorge. Anticipating the water play, we were prepared with swimmers, towels and reef booties for the kids!

The gorges are certainly spectacular and made for a pretty cool walk.

On the drive back from Kalamina, we attempted to drive up to the top of Nameless Mountain (yes it’s actually called ‘Namelss Mountain’) which is the mountain that sits behind the camp site. The 4WD trail takes you right to the top so we decided to give it a go and get up there for sunset. Getting close to the top, and very close to the sun setting, we realised how lose the bull bar on the car was looking as we bumped our way up the 4WD track. After a quick stop to check it out, Andy realised that the welding to attach the bull bar to the car had pretty much given up and we were not even sure what was holding the bull bar on any more! Our attempt to get to the summit was abandoned, and Nameless mountain will now be known to us as the place where the bull bar almost came off!

After four nights here in Karijini, we are now setting off on our way back to the coast (with the bull bar safely in the van until we can get it re-attached somewhere after the long weekend!).

What an adventure… never a dull moment that’s for sure!