29th July 2021 Karajini National Park

Back on the very rough road again it has been very windy the last couple of days and not got any better the straps on the boat cover keeps breaking even though it is a new cover, there is no such thing as quality anymore,  with the straps and a blowout on the trailer along with the mud guard it is starting to get a little annoying.

We were on our way to Dales Gorge to go to fern pool, we went to the information centre to try to get some idea of what different places might be like and what to expect, that was a waste of time, the signage in the Park is terrible.

As we were driving to the gorge we saw a dingo laying beside the road and another big snake.

It was a nice surprise to see really good steel stairs at this one, 200 made well fully enclosed on the sides, I just tried not to look through the steps down into the gorge, I did keep a hold of the rail.

When we got to the bottom it brought us out onto rock platforms above Fortescue Falls, there was a lot of young people swimming in the pool and laying around on the rocks down lower but there was no way I was going to try and climb down over rock ledges, fern pool was a bit of a walk up through some vegetation, on the way we were surprised to see fruit bats in several of the trees.

When we reached fern pool it was worth the 200 steps tho get down there, there was a platform built with a ladder to make it easy to get in and out of the water.

The water was fresh to start with but so nice once we got used to it, there is a waterfall that we swam to, the water coming over the falls is a lot warmer than in the pool.

This was the sort of place that is hard to leave, we were surprised at how well we climbed the steps back up.

We met a ranger at the  top and we enquired about the crops we had seen growing he explained Hamersley iron is dewatering an area so they can get at ore and they are not allowed to pump the water into rivers or creeks so they grow fodder experimenting with different types, it looked very impressive they have very large watering systems with acres of crops, which proves if you can get water to an area you can make it productive.