And it was. We spent the first night trying to sleep as rocks jabbed into our backs. Eventually we found a way to curve our bodies around the rocks, almost like completing a maze, and got to sleep. However, morning was not far off, and due to extreme heat (Karijini is REALLY far north), we got up at 7 so that we could be out hiking by 8. We ate breakfast, which is odd for me, and packed up our water bottles. We did our best to make sure that everyone had 5 liters of water with them so that we could hike in the 90 degree Fahrenheit heat. Armed with heavy backpacks and swimsuits, we locked our trash in our car to deter dingoes, and made our way to the first gorge of the trip, Dale's Gorge.
The views were breath taking. I thought I could be satisfied to live forever on the edge of the gorge and never see another landscape for as long as I live. However, I'm glad I didn't, because the view from inside the gorge was even better.
We spent the entire day hiking. We went down on one side of the river to one end, and were rewarded with a beautiful pool, called the Circular Pool. Before we stopped for lunch, we stopped for a swim.
It was a nice relief to be out of the heat and into the chilly water. There was a ledge to jump off of, and some nice sun to dry ourselves after. All of us girls decided to just do the rest of the hiking in our swim suits, though we were sure to use sunscreen!
I suppose now would be a good time to introduce to my fellow travelers. A nice man at the pool took our picture before we left for Fortesque Falls and the Fern Pool, on the other side of the gorge.
From left to right, we have Elizabeth, an awesome American from Ohio, Becca, who came with me from MSU, Mallory, who came with Elizabeth, and Terry, our Tasmanian life saver. I mean Terry's title quite literally, but more on that later.
We had lunch not far from the pool, and then continued on a tougher trail to the waterfalls. We passed the waterfalls to go to another pool, but by then we were all too exhausted to swim. We found our way back to the falls, which was also by an alternative way out of the gorge, and stopped for a breathtaking breather. Oxymoron, I know, but seriously. Look at the view.
For a glimpse of what I was actually looking at:
But a short rest was not enough for adrenaline junkie, Mallory. She was keen to cliff dive. So she climbed across the side of the gorge (pretty much holding onto ledges) and jumped off.
That's here on top. The guy below her helped her down and then jumped with her. It was insane. At the same time, I spotted the dingo that I posted a picture of in my animals post a couple of days ago, so I didn't actually see her jump. But I got some great pictures of the dingo!
This was our last stop at this gorge, and we climbed out with about an hour of daylight to spare. We made dinner (beans and rice for them, mac and cheese for the non bean eater, me), and then tackled another issue. There was no clean drinking water available at the camp. Terry, Elizabeth, and I all drove down to the water tower and filled a huge jug to bring back and boil. While we were down there, we stopped at the pay phone at the visitor's centre to call Tyler. Partially I wanted to talk to him. However, I also wanted to get him to send an email to my dad telling him that we were alive, and all was well.
With all messages passed along, we returned to camp, and used up our entire propane tank boiling water for the next day. Oops.
We went to bed fairly early, since we had no lights other than the stars. But man were they bright. I know I posted that Perth had the brightest stars I had ever seen, but that no longer holds true. I've NEVER seen so many stars in my life. I'm not sure it is possible to find an area so deserted in the US to see these kinds of stars. I seriously can't describe it and do it any justice, so I'm not even going to try.
Let's just say that that night, it didn't matter how many rocks there were jabbing us in the back. We all slept JUST fine.
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