Once again, in the middle of the red dirt and arid desert, all these beautiful gorges
Having sorted our tyre situation (blown tyre between Broome and Port Hedland) we zoomed down into Karijini National Park. The drive in seemed to be the start of the WA wildflowers that I have been so looking forward to. When we arrived our shady campsite was taken, but our next one was spacious and the bush loo clean and odourless. What was not to love?
We had lots of walks and swims to get into, but we did a fair bit of hanging around the caravan reading and relaxing (read boys glued to small screens at every available opportunity and parents letting them). When we finally needed some activity, and it was cool enough, we did the walk and swims at Fern Pool and Fortescue Falls which were very pleasant for the boys. I just watched! The next day saw us down into Circular Pool in half an hour which is meant to take 2 hours! The boys greatly enjoyed the echoes of their voices on the rocky walls of the gorges and thankfully we were almost completely alone on that walk. On arrival there were some swimming invertebrates that looked leech-like, but were not. Nonetheless three out of five were not keen to get into the water!
We took in the cultural centre and learned a lot about the impact of pastoralists and mining on the local Aboriginal people. One of the moist poignant and memorable stories for me was from one of the local grandfathers who was a very learned man in Aboriginal culture, knowing all the songs and stories and having knowledge in healing plants etc. His totem was the mountain at Tom Price, thats where he believed he drew his strength from. Before he died he started singing a new song about the destruction of his mountain, that a time would come when there would be loud noises and lights on it at night and things crawling on it. His people still sing that song and now Tom Price is not the mountain it once was...
We had planned to go back into the other side of Karijini and see the Weano gorges etc once we had set up in Tom Price, but we ended up just pushing on. We've got to leave something for next time!
We took in the cultural centre and learned a lot about the impact of pastoralists and mining on the local Aboriginal people. One of the moist poignant and memorable stories for me was from one of the local grandfathers who was a very learned man in Aboriginal culture, knowing all the songs and stories and having knowledge in healing plants etc. His totem was the mountain at Tom Price, thats where he believed he drew his strength from. Before he died he started singing a new song about the destruction of his mountain, that a time would come when there would be loud noises and lights on it at night and things crawling on it. His people still sing that song and now Tom Price is not the mountain it once was...
We had planned to go back into the other side of Karijini and see the Weano gorges etc once we had set up in Tom Price, but we ended up just pushing on. We've got to leave something for next time!