Karijini in June

G'day Mike, Can,t tell you much about how karijini is these days,not been there for years,all roads there were gravel then but mostly bitumen now.

The Dooley Downs /pingandy road is a good run,reasonably slow going as a lot of dips and bends. If there has been a fair bit of rain about ,the road from the junction of Pigandy/ashburton road to Ashburton station can get a bit slippery and boggy. All in all ,a very nice run,hope you enjoy it.

Cheers, Sparra

Will be busy in June but worst case scenario would be to stay in overnight area near visitors centre then move to Dales first thing in morning. A better option may be to stay and hour or so away from Dales and get going as early as possible.
I have not been there (camp hosting) in June but understand it bit easier to get in in June than July.
If you have time and like walking you could fill in a week without much trouble.

My favorite place in Australia

Mike we went up to Karrijini in June 2014 via Newman which was our last overnight stop and then its only a couple of hours to Dales camp ground.

At Dales you have a choice of camping with or without gennies, and at about 10am when we arrived there was plenty of choice, but it' s first in. We had 4 nights there which was enough to see the local gorges and a few to drive to. Shared gas bbq's and clean serviced long drops are spotted around the sites. The walk along the bottom of Dales gorge from fern pool (great swiming) to circular pool is a must do. (Did it each way)

We then movesd to the Eco park for a night. Very empty and not the same atmosphere as Dales, but still nice.

Roads in the area are gravel and can be loose and corrugated even to the Information centre which is well worth spening some time at.

We are setting off up there again in about 2 weeks to do the western side of the park and planning staying out of Tom Price this time before heading a lot further north.

Enjoy your trip.

John.

We stayed at Tom Price and did Hancocks Gorge, mine tour and Mount Nameless, then moved to Dales Gorge for one night. The road between the information centre and Kalamina Gorge rattled our fillings loose for 35km. The rest of the roads were OK.

3 days is enough if based at Dales Gorge. We should have stayed longer. A Great place is Karajini NP. Do the walks.
WBS

Hi Mike

Be sure to include Hamersley Gorge which is accessed from the west side of the ranges. It is different to the structure of the internal gorges. Member WBS may have meant to say Hamersley Gorge from Tom Price. The country around Tom Price is beautiful.

We stayed at Dales campground and driving to the gorges was easy and not time consuming. Internal roads were corrugated at the time, but not much different to the south west rural roads we are used to. We walked into all the gorges that were open, and only missed parts of the walks marked "extreme". Improvements in access have been made since then.

We did not go to the top of Mount Bruce due to the time left in the day, but walking was easy as far as we went.

See brochure

Mike. We did this trip last year in May June with Prado towing a Kimberley Karavan. Road from Kennedy Range to Mt Augustus is good dirt road. From Mt Augustus to Tom Price via Dooley Downs also good. Some steep and windy bits between Mt Augustus and when the road meets the Ashburton River. There had been heavy rain 2 weeks previous to when we went through so there were a lot of minor washouts and gutters across the road. This was quite bad where the road runs parallel to Ashburton river. Very difficult to spot as well as gutters caused by water damming up behind the roadside graded berm then breaking through the berm. So not an obvious creek crossing. So take it easy. It is a very very scenic drive. We took 2 days because we could. Very little traffic, probably 10 cars per day that we saw.

Enjoy. We will do it again soon.

John

If you are looking for something different, drive up the western side of the Kennedy Range and over the top.
There is a magic hidden world up there.....
Talk to Parks first, we found them most helpful.

More pics here....
http://s246.photobucket.com/user/Peter_n_Margaret/slideshow/06%209a%20Kennedy%20Ranges

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 Motorhome

Sounds like a great area to explore! Are tracks easy to follow ? Cheers Mike