Today we put our 4- wheel drive to good use and took State Route 136 (Nanutarra- Munjina Road) to Hamersley Gorge in Karijini National Park. It is a gravel road that you can only navigate with an all terrain vehicle. Regular cars need to take the detour via Paraburdoo. As the roads here are rather quiet hubby started to time the distances between the cars we encountered- todays record was a whooping 18 minutes!

A great piece of advice two travelers gave us in Cheela Plains was to do Hamersley Gorge on the way to Karijini. Hamersley is quite a drive from the camp we had chosen for the night. Thus way two nights in Karijini was enough to see and hike most of the gorges.

Nature was incredibly green and we saw beautiful flowers along the roads in all kinds of colors. The beauty of being here during this time of year is that the occasional rain fall lets plants show their best. I am sure the landscape will look completely different during the hotter months.

The landscape here in Western Australia is just unreal. The pure vastness of the land combined with the stunning array of color looks like it is photoshoped, but I can guarantee you, none of the pictures on this site are. Australia awes you- and I am completely in love with this continent.

Like Hamersley Gorge, the first gorge we drove to in Karijini. We went to the lookout then walked down to the gorge. And immediately decided to hike back to the car to get our swimming gear. The water was quite refreshing but once you start swimming the sight of the rocks to either side of the river make you forget that you were freezing. And who wouldn’t want to swim here?

We both really enjoy driving on gravel roads and we have this friendly haggling going on between hubby and me who gets to drive. Happy to say I got the last, more interesting, bit. Bit he hot the views!

For the next three nights we were booked into the „ECO Retreat“ that offers campsites but also „glamping“ tents (= camping with a bit more glamour). Basically these are tents with a real bed and a bathroom under the stars.

Before we called it a night we wanted to see another gorge- Joffre Gorge. This one is in direct vicinity to the retreat. It consists of three pools and the hike down is quite challenging and includes quite a bit of rock climbing or wading in the water if you want to see all three. But it is well worth the trip.