Does the word gorgeous come from the fact gorges are so gorgeous? I pose this question to myself constantly as we explore the stunning chasms that carve their way through Karajini National Park.  Set in the heart of the Pilbara, just north of the Tropic of Capricorn in the Hamersley Range, Karajini covers 627,422 hectares and is WA’s second largest national park. For the most part it is dusty plains punctuated with rocky hills ( they call them mountains but you and I know 1200 metres is just a hill ) jutting up out of nowhere. Then you arrive at the edge of a cliff that takes you down a precarious path to a lovely natural swimming pool. Our favourite is Fern Pool in Dales Gorge, and we reach it after a long walk around the rim of the gorge, then a descent and a long walk along the gorge floor.  A waterfall cascades at the end of the pool which is about five or six metres deep. Someone dives in and loses their sunglasses; Scott has his mask, fins and snorkel with him and after a few dives manages to find them, much to general delight.

Throughout the park there are more than half a dozen accessible gorges and swimming holes – all require some clambering down and climbing out, sometimes over quite unstable surfaces, and all are worth the trouble. I run out of words to describe all of these wonders: they are magnificent, deep chasms, many fed by waterfalls, fringed with greenery and mind blowing rock formations.  

The permanent water supply supports some native trees, such as the Rock Fig  and Rock Kurragong which miraculously cling to the rock walls and flourish.  Fluffy purple Mulla Mulla, bright yellow cassia and wattle – 65 species no less – spring up and show their full glory against the red earth.

The Pilbara is a geological time map – It comprises the oldest and most ancient rock formations in the world. It’s true. Parts of the Pilbara are dated over 3.5 billion years old and the existence of stromatolites – the earliest fossil evidence of life on Earth – are present here and also nearby at Shark Bay out to the coast. The knowledge they were the only life for a couple of billion years before they raised the oxygen level enough to allow the development of other forms of life, us, for example, is astounding.

The night sky viewing is second to none and we sign up for an astronomical adventure with Phil, a man whose jokes have more corn than Illinois, Iowa and Indiana combined. But he has three telescopes and he knows his stuff. TMI (too much information) results as he reels off numbers of light years, degrees of heat, numbers of moons and how many Earths could fit onto other planets, and I tune Phil out and simply enjoy the beauty of a sky with no light pollution, and gasp at the images we see through the telescopes: Alpha Centauri, Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon and other nameless stars that are so much more than what they seem – like all of us.

It has been a revelation – isn’t everything in this country? – to discover the Pilbara region and the diversity of landscapes. We now head west and will stay on some working cattle stations as we head to the coast again.