„Isn’t that impressive?“ asks Rene as we enter the first gorge of Karinjini NP. Yes - it is gorgeous! The most beautiful colours made of stone and built up to 100m high walls surrounding us. It is one of the nicest places we have been in Australia. We spend hours with hiking through the stony terrain - always looking at this wonders which come along our way. There’s water running down through polished stone, shimmering like liquid metal in the afternoon sun. Colours of the stones are ranging from a pale yellow over intensive red and orange to a dark violet. A hundred meters along the path we find ourself climbing like spiders through a one metre broad gap. Beneath us floats a slippery water channel. Falling down would be not the best idea... At the end is a refreshing, turquoise pool waiting for a swim. When the icy water embraces us we have to hold our breaths - it is THAT cold and THAT beautiful in here!

Within the next day we discover more gorges and more places in that stunning part of Australia - right placed in the Pilbara. This is the place where the highest concentration of iron ore is found. Today accompanied by a large number of mines and kilometre long trains that carry the iron in 200 waggons to the ports. An enormous industrial area in which this jewel of nature - the Karinjini NP - is located.

But getting here is hard work - a detour of approximately 600km plus a very rough, corrugated dirtroad-section within the NP are a good price for so much untouched nature! Dust is covering us all over when cars overtaking fast. We breath dust, have it in our eyes and can’t see it anymore at the end of the day. People sometimes can’t imagine that we don’t have a nice glass screen around us, protecting us from stones, dust and smells. The smell of dead animals will not end when we travel along the asphalt - direction: caost. Sweet and disgusting it comes through our visers and is getting directly down to our stomach. We feel a bit sick after this 80km strip I call “the highway of death”. I have never ever seen so much killed wildlife along a road! The sad story about Australia...

Our journey through a lot of empty country - means: no houses within the last 300km - is ending in Exmouth. Here we decide to take holidays from holidays. Believe it or not but travelling is sometimes more exhausting than a working day! Whalesharks, Humpback Whales and Manta Rays are gathering their annual peak season under water. This is going to be exciting!

After our break here we drive down to Coral Bay and Shark Bay - for more snorkelling and relaxing!

Did you know that the tempertaure of the soil in the Pilbara can reach up to 75 degrees at summer time? Good, that we are here in winter...

Monique