Karijini and entering the Kimberleys

Beautiful sunrise at the Karijini park camp.
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Back on the bus, it was a long day of driving to reach our campsite in Karijini national park.  We had to deal with a tire blow-out in the middle of nowhere, which delayed us and meant we were setting up in the dark.  But we got our supper sorted out and all made it an early night to prepare for an early start the following day to have time to walk amongst the gorges of the park.

The next day I awoke to a beautiful outback sunrise.  Then we hiked down into the gorge to circular pool, a lovely clear water swimming pool.  No sharks or crocs here!  I was the first to dive in.

One of the gorgeous gorges of Karijini.
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We continued along the gorge to Fortescue Falls and another swimming hole with waterfalls you could sit under.  Again, I was the first to dive in, it was so refreshing and clear.

Our second night we stayed at a cattle station which was an interesting experience, to say the least.  This station was 100km across, and used planes and helicopters to round up the cattle when it was time to brand the calves and take some to market.  My room was a little cubicle in a portable trailer.  The mosquitoes here were vicious, they even bit through long pants.  I had brought a bug jacket with me from Canada, and although I got a fair bit of teasing for the way it looked, there were quite a few jealous travellers as well.  But the odd mozzie even got to me through the mesh of the jacket.

A refreshing clear waterhole before hiking back up the gorge.
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The next day it was onward, north toward Broome.  We stopped at eighty mile beach, or what Pete calls 132km beach.  Where there were fisherman on the beach catching lovely salmon.  Too bad we had to move on and couldn't share their catch.  We played bus cricket to pass the time - too difficult to explain here, but involves teams, loud music, and runs like in cricket, and points for getting oncoming cars and trucks to wave, honk, etc.  It may sound inane, but those 3 or 400 km went by a lot more quickly..