Many consider Karijini along with its harsh and unspoilt natural beauty - a ‘must see’ - being an absolute delight for photographers, hikers, and nature enthusiasts.
Karijini National Park is awash with rich earthy red colours and spectacular scenery - famed for its sheer gorges, waterfalls and cool swimming holes. Some of the highlights in this park include: Dales Gorge, Circular Pool, Fortescue Falls, Fern Pool, and Oxer Lookout, which lies at the junction of Weano Gorge, Red Gorge, Hancock Gorge and Joffre Gorge. Karijini is very well maintained. The park provides plenty of amenities, excellent picnic areas, designated camping sites, modest accommodation, and an informative visitor centre. The park also features a system of walk trails of varying levels, for the beginner to the adventurous, with some trails leading deep into the subterranean gorges and through waterfalls and sparkling rock pools.
Karijini National Park may be isolated, but there are many access routes to get there. From the west you can head towards Tom Price after leaving the North West Coastal Highway near Nanutarra. Those coming in from the east can use the Great Northern Highway from Newman and then onto Karijini Drive. Those coming from the north from Karratha and Roebourne can also take in Millstream Chichester National Park before reaching Karijini. Although many people self-drive to Karijini, many tourists enjoy accessing the park via 4WD tour groups. There are a number of reputable and experienced tour operators that provides this service.
How to Use this Trek Note
Click the "Map" tab to see the route we've provided. Icons on the map are the POIs you'll need for navigation purposes. Be sure to check the list of Nearby
Places on each POI page.
If you'd like to save this information there are a couple of ways to go about it, depending on what you're actually after:-
- Ideal solution - download the ExplorOz Traveller App from the applicable store for your device -
either the Google PlayStore, the App Store, or the Windows Store (for Windows 10 devices only). The ExplorOz Traveller app is a complete mapping, navigation and tracking app and includes all the ExplorOz Trek routes ready for you to simply click and follow with auto-guidance available whether you are online, or offline. For more details, read our ExplorOz Traveller page. - You can print a paper copy of the text using the print icon button shown above, near the social media buttons. For the best output it is advised to open each tab/section to load all images and artwork. You will still need to click open each Place page (listed in Where to Stay, What to See) to print off all available information.
- If you have a Hema Navigator or use Mapping Software such as OziExplorer, or TrackRanger AND you are an ExplorOz Member, then you can click the Download Trek button at the top of this page to obtain the raw data files (eg. GPX) for this Trek.
- If you're not a Member, or you'd like to batch download the entire Treks database you can obtain this by buying a product called EOTreks Route Files from our online shop.
Environment
In the northern section of
Karijini National Park, numerous small creeks hidden in the rolling hillsides suddenly plunge into sheer-sided chasms up to 100 metres deep. These spectacular albeit dangerous gorges widen further downstream and their sides change from sheer cliffs to steep slopes of loose rock. On the eastern side of the park, Dales Gorge provides a stream, pools, and waterfalls.
There are various types of ferns and the occasional snappy gum can be seen perched on rocky ledges.
Wildflowers vary with the seasons, whilst in the cooler months, the region is covered with yellow-flowering cassias and wattles, northern bluebells and purple mulla-mullas.
Karijini National Park is home to a variety of birds, red kangaroos, euros, rock wallabies, echidnas and handful a bat species. Reptiles that frequent the rocks include: goannas, dragons, geckos, legless lizards, pythons and many other snakes. There are also huge termite mounds to be seen and you may even find a rock pile from the rare pebble mound mouse.
History
Karijini National Park is the traditional home of the Banyjima, Kurrama and Innawonga Aboriginal people. The Banyjima name for the Hamersley Range is Karijini and evidence of their early settlements dates back over 20,000 years ago. During those times, Aboriginal land management practises such as ‘fire stick farming’, which describes the practise where fire was used regularly to burn vegetation to facilitate hunting and to change the composition of plant and animal species in an area.
Before
Karijini National Park was coined, explorer Francis Thomas Gregory had named it Hamersley Range after leading a party into the region in 1861. Edward Hamersley was a friend and generous supporter of F.T. Gregory’s explorations, and thus had the mountain range named after him.
