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Day 2 – Bilyuin Pool to Karijini
- Spicilicious
- Aug 12, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 28, 2022
Friday, 12/08/2022
The day started when we got to wake up naturally (no alarms – yay!) and open the tent to a beautiful, slightly chilled morning. The campsite was just as stunning and peaceful in the morning as it had been the previous afternoon, and I was almost sad to leave it. Almost, because today we would finally be arriving at Karijini! We quickly packed up, choosing to skip breakfast to get on the road sooner. Daniel took the first leg, with an estimated 6-ish hours of driving to get through.
We again stopped at a couple of fuel stations to top up with diesel and grab some delicious and nutritious roadhouse food (dagwood dogs and hashbrowns for Daniel, nothing for me). We filled our drive with talking and music, and got into a very in-depth conversation about relays, which turned into a full lecture on how 12V systems work as I questioned Daniel on why the 40A DCDC charger needed 100A wire which was wired into 60A fuse holders that had 50A fuses in them, and why that wouldn’t mean things would just catch fire. I’m not joking when I say this was a very long, in-depth discussion. Maybe we can upload it to the channel, and you can see what I mean! Either way, I was finally able to comprehend when I had an epiphany thanks to Daniel’s endless explanations, and we reached a happy medium. I even got to teach him a little bit about how batteries work, but I don’t think he was that interested to be honest.
I took over the driving at the halfway point but was quickly pulling over again to get a quick snap as we passed the official border into the Pilbara and cross the Tropic of Capricorn. We continued on, doing some quick recalculations in our head as we watched the DMAX’s economy continue to worsen until it finally steadied out at a whopping 15.3L/100km! This number alone was the deciding factor to stop in Newman and buy a 20L diesel jerry can, just to be safe. After meandering around Newman for an hour as I tried to frantically ease my anxiety about heading to the remote Karijini, we set off on the final leg. The terrain quickly changed from ‘flat and brown’ to jagged hills with cliffs and crags cutting through them. We tried to guess which one might be Mt Meharry, getting more and more impressed as each ‘hill’ was bigger than the last.
Finally, we hit the turnoff for Karijini, arriving at the campground around 4:30pm. We paid our park entry fee of $15.00 and headed to our bay – 144 Warlu Loop. I got incredibly excited when I spotted a dingo trotting along the side of the road. Luckily Daniel was driving again now, and being the ever-patient and loving partner he is, he obliged when I begged (demanded) he pull over so I could get some video of this majestic creature. We had a quick discussion about the lady who lost her children to dingos and remembered they were dangerous, but they had already been added to the top end of my ‘favourite animals’ list. After marvelling at such a wise and intense looking creature (“It’s just a dog…” – Daniel, 2022), we moved on to find our camping spot and home for the next 5 nights.
We had booked online many months ago and chosen a spot on the corner of a loop, so only one camping bat was next to us and it was empty when we got there. We were both impressed by how neatly the whole area was set up, with some drop toilets provided at regular intervals. Everything was really well sign-posted and easy to navigate. We backed into our camp spot, got out to look around, and I got excited again about the static crunch sound of walking over the square gravel rocks (it’s the small things in life).
After realising there was still a good hour and a half of daylight left, we decided to go check out the nearest gorge – Dales Gorge. So, we jumped back in the car and drove a whopping 1.5kms to the car park. I was pleased to find more drop toilets, and both of us were amazed by them. Let me tell you folks, I’ve used a lot of drop dunnies over the years. And this drop dunny outdid them all, and even some of the regular flushing toilets I’ve used too! It smelt GOOD, which a drop dunny just doesn’t do. But this one did. Some kind of toilet wizardry was obviously happening, and I’m just going to put it down to the magic that is Karijini.
After the toilet experience, we excitedly headed down to Dales Gorge lookout. One minute, it’s just regular trees and shrubs, the next, the world is dropping away at your feet to reveal the most stunning oasis in Outback Australia. Trees were growing tall along the floor of the gorge, and a waterfall sprung forth from the thick under scrub, cascading down a tiered rock face before settling into a deep aqua-green pool. On both sides, sheer rock faces rose up into the rest of the world, textured by the hundreds of layers of rock that make up the ground. I apologise for my story-telling way of describing things, but you’re gonna have to get used to it because this place inspires that type of reaction and description. And yet it still doesn’t do it justice.
Daniel and I looked around in absolute awe as the setting sun cast its warm orange glow across the red and green terrain. We eventually ventured off to walk half of the Dales Gorge rim track, which follows along the top of the gorge, showcasing its magnificence from above. We took some photos and videos, followed by some more photos and videos, and some cool selfies on the cliff top. Once the sun was starting to near the horizon we headed back to the DMAX, more excited than ever for the coming days and the exploring and adventures they would yield.
Back at camp we set up and cooked some mean burgers for dinner before loading all our footage and photos onto the SSD. We spent some time looking through the shots from the gorge rim track and were again amazed at how picturesque it was. After discussing a rough plan for the following day, we headed up to bed.
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