Many consider Karijini along with its harsh and unspoilt natural beauty - a ‘must see’ - being an absolute delight for photographers, hikers, and nature enthusiasts.
Karijini National Park is awash with rich earthy red colours and spectacular scenery - famed for its sheer gorges, waterfalls and cool swimming holes. Some of the highlights in this park include:
Dales Gorge,
Circular Pool,
Fortescue Falls,
Fern Pool, and Oxer
Lookout, which lies at
the junction of
Weano Gorge, Red
Gorge,
Hancock Gorge and
Joffre Gorge. Karijini is very
well maintained. The park provides plenty of amenities, excellent picnic areas, designated camping sites, modest accommodation, and an informative
visitor centre. The park also features a system of walk
trails of varying levels, for the beginner to the adventurous, with some
trails leading deep into the subterranean gorges and through waterfalls and sparkling
rock pools.
Karijini National Park may be isolated, but there are many access routes to get there. From the west you can head towards
Tom Price after leaving the North West Coastal Highway near Nanutarra. Those coming in from the east can use the Great Northern Highway from
Newman and then onto Karijini Drive. Those coming from the north from
Karratha and Roebourne can also take in
Millstream Chichester National Park before reaching Karijini. Although many people self-drive to Karijini, many tourists enjoy accessing the park via 4WD tour groups. There are a number of reputable and experienced tour operators that provides this service.
How to Use this Trek Note
- To download this information and the route file for offline use on a phone, tablet, headunit or laptop, go to the app store and purchase ExplorOz Traveller. This app enables offline navigation and mapping and will show where you are as you travel along the route. For more info see the ExplorOz Traveller webpage and the EOTopo webpage.
Environment
In the northern section of
Karijini National Park, numerous small creeks hidden in the rolling hillsides suddenly plunge into sheer-sided chasms up to 100 metres deep. These spectacular albeit dangerous gorges widen further downstream and their sides change from sheer cliffs to steep slopes of loose
rock. On the eastern side of the park,
Dales Gorge provides a stream, pools, and waterfalls.
There are various types of ferns and the occasional snappy gum can be seen perched on rocky ledges.
Wildflowers vary with the seasons, whilst in the cooler months, the region is covered with yellow-flowering cassias and wattles, northern bluebells and purple mulla-mullas.
Karijini National Park is
home to a variety of birds, red kangaroos, euros,
rock wallabies, echidnas and handful a bat species. Reptiles that frequent the rocks include: goannas, dragons, geckos, legless lizards, pythons and many other snakes. There are also huge
termite mounds to be seen and you may even find a
rock pile from the rare pebble mound mouse.
History
Karijini National Park is the traditional home of the Banyjima, Kurrama and Innawonga Aboriginal people. The Banyjima name for the Hamersley Range is Karijini and evidence of their early settlements dates back over 20,000 years ago. During those times, Aboriginal land management practises such as ‘fire stick farming’, which describes the practise where fire was used regularly to burn vegetation to facilitate hunting and to change the composition of plant and animal species in an area.
Before Karijini National Park was coined, explorer Francis Thomas Gregory had named it Hamersley Range after leading a party into the region in 1861. Edward Hamersley was a friend and generous supporter of F.T. Gregory’s explorations, and thus had the mountain range named after him.
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