Day 23 – 11th June – Part I – Weano Gorge

There are not enough superlatives in the dictionary to describe our day… the gorges of Karijini National Park are continuing to leave us awestruck…

Today we visited Weano Gorge and Hancock Gorge.  Because I have so many photos I have split the post into two.

Weano Gorge starts with a walk above ground to one end where there is a gentle slope down into the start of the gorge.  We wandered along the bottom of the gorge for a bit before coming across this gorgeous pool. 

We continued along the path when all of a sudden there was a loud noise… the walls of the gorge started rumbling.  The noise and the vibrations were getting louder… the kids were panicking, our eyes were huge, a million different scenarios were going through my head… it was a rockslide, or a flash flood… the adrenaline hit with a rush… the roar got louder, it was almost deafening… then all of a sudden something grey flashed past overhead.  We glanced up in time to see another grey flash then we finally figured out what we were hearing as a third jet plane went screaming past.  These planes flew over REALLY low.  Once we knew what the noise was it was actually pretty cool. Dave managed to get a good look at the third jet as it went over. How often can you say you were in the bottom of a gorge in Karijini National Park with three fighter jets screaming past?  

However, I do feel some pity for a couple of girls further down the gorge from us.  They were in a section that was really narrow and had no visual on the planes so the noise was even more deafening and they had no idea what was causing it… they looked a little shaken when we saw them….

Further along the track we came to our first (of many) wet crossings of the day.  This crossing turned out to be about 20m long and even though someone had told us it was knee deep, it turned out for someone like me with short legs, I got a wet bum… There is a final destination in mind, a pool called Handrail Pool.  So, there is a certain motivation to get wet…

Even with this motivation is was a hard crossing.  The water was FREEZING.  It was so cold your feet simultaneously stung and burned.  Look at our faces… at this point Megan and I were seriously considering turning back. 

Of course, Dave wouldn’t have a bar of it and, the hard task master that he is, made us keep going.  It turned out to be a good thing because within a minute or two the pain went away… I am not sure if it is because my feet were so numb I just couldn’t feel anything anymore or if our bodies actually got used to the temperature… Here we are much happier ;) 

We proceeded past the wet crossing in bare feet, a tough call for oldies like us but easy peasy for our mountain goat kids.  Bare feet were the best option though as we came to a narrow chasm with water running at a fair pace through it.   There were sections like this all day that were rated as difficult, mainly because there are some tricky rocks to climb and they’re wet and SUPER slippery.  

Popping out the end of the first chasm we found this little pool 

But the highlight of this gorge was at the end of the next tunnel.  As the water leaves the tunnel and falls over the edge a handrail appears to guide you to safety.  It was a scary/slippery climb down to the pool, which, not surprisingly, is called Handrail Pool. 

Leaving Weano Gorge we took a set of stairs back up to flat ground.  Half way up I took a photo looking back down on the pool in my first photo.  We had approached the pool from the northern direction (with respect to the photo)

Further up the track there was a lookout.  It is hard to imagine that only moments ago we had been walking along the base of that rift…