June 2016 – Karajini and Broome

Hi,
The purpose of this blog is to keep our friends, family and work colleagues up to date with our travels. PS Photos down the bottom of this blog.
. KARAJINI NATIONAL PARK
Left Exmouth on day 29 (22/5) and headed into the Pilbara region, via Tom Price which is the highest town in WA. Drove to the other side of Karijini National Park and camped at Munjina Gorge East lookout, which has beautiful views and a great free camping spot with plenty of room.
Visited Karijini NP the next day and mainly focused on hiking Dales Gorge, so we followed the walk trail from the car park to Fortescue Falls, which are spring-fed permanent falls, then took the detour onto Fern Pool and had a refreshing swim, and then walked the gorge floor onto Circular Pool for another swim, with plenty of photo opportunities.
This is where I spent my birthday, so Bernie tried his best to make it speical (e.g. road dinner cooked in the camp oven on the fire, chocolate for dessert, movie on the laptop under the stars with Munjina Gorge as our backdrop).
.BROOME
After driving for a few days via Port Hedland and 80 mile beach we arrived in Broome on 26/5. As Broome caravan parks don’t take dogs in June/July/August, we had a booking 25kms out of town. However, our old neighbours from Dunsborough (Lorie and Nick, owners of Kimberley Expeditions) have a depot for their business in Broome, so offered for us to camp there. This was great as we were only a few minutes’ drive from town and cable beach, making it easier to do all the sights.
We then had the opportunity to enjoy the sights and activities of Broome which included:
. runs and walks along Cable Beach before breakfast and sunset drinks (cable beach is claimed to be one of the most stunning beaches in the world with 22kms of pristine white sand and clear turquoise water – and I’d say it is),
. Chinatown – home to some of the world’s finest pearl showrooms (no, I didn’t buy a new pearl),
. Japanese cementery – the final resting place for over 900 pearl divers,
. courthouse local markets on Sat/Sun, townbeach night markets on Thur,
. Malcolm Douglas crocodile park – home to dangerous sale water crocodiles as well as Australian fresh water crocodiles. Everything from small babies to massive 5m crocs can be seen, and
. taking in a movie under at the stars at the sun pictures, which is the oldest picture garden in the world and a unique outdoor theatre (watched ‘The Nice Guys’ – great film).
There are still plenty of things to do in broome (e.g. sunset camel ride along cable beach, various venues to drink/eat and watch the sun set over cable beach or the mangroves at roebuck bay). It is also hard to leave when the weather forecast each day is Sunny with a min of 20 and a max of 30.
It is now day 46 of our road trip. So once we leave Broome we are going to a remote camp spot north of Broome (Cape Leveque region), and then onto the gibb river road and Mitchell plateau etc.
So until next time….