Oz Circumnavigation: Out of the "Kimberley's" and into the "Pilbara"

The title of this piece tells a lot, the whole landscape changed.

Given our travels we have both agreed that the Pilbara scenery in the Karinjini Gorge area of the Pilbara is unrivalled - must be seen to be believed.

However as always it is the roadway we experience first and this sight - a 420 km stretch of unfenced road is a first, normally it is 50 to 100 kms. Unfortunately we seen a number of Cattle road kill on this stretch so the warning was appropriate.

On reaching Port Headland which is in the Pilbara but has very little to commend it to the visitor, for us it was refuel and renew food supplies plus an overnight stop with this vision from the bedroom window.

Notice how low in the water the 350m long plus ship is.

The view at night was much more pleasing to the eye.

The ship sailed during the night and the ship below arrived at 12 midnight, Mike awoke and experience a mega tonne iron ore vessel passing within 50 m of the Van.

The ship had berthed by morning and was ready to load more iron ore.
This is the life cycle of Port Headland - millions of tonnes arrive by rail from the hinterland and disappear into the hold of a ship.

Karinjini had more interest to us, whilst Australia needs the Port Headland cycle to support our life style.

Back to the roadside, the first of the wild flowers on show.

Now here is the cream of "The Pilbara".

Colours, shades and contours area are stunning.

To fully appreciate the following group of images they must be opened in a separate tab

This is at the bottom of Dales Gorge in Karinjini National Park.
The trees there seem to grow out of the rocks.

These paper barks are in the base of the gorge and must be inundated with water during the wet season, but somehow have survived to become substantial trees.

This is circular pool at the Dales gorge view from above, when we went to the bottom, the water was cold with water seeping continually from the surrounding rock face.

This is the pool from below.

At the opposite end of the Dales Gorge to circular pool was Fortescue Falls, imagine the view of these falls in the wet when the river is in flood - Awesome.

This is the pool at the bottom of Fortescue Falls.

The Dales Gorge landscape from to top.

Light and shade

The intrepid traveller arriving at the top.

To end this sequence what about a view of life and death, this we believe is a"Snappy Eucalyptus" which has grown a new tree around
the dead trunk - unusual !!