03/03/07 – 04/03/07: Karajini, Tom Price & Fern Pool

I have decided to back-blog some of my entries, because let’s face it: my travels really started in Newman. And why shouldn't I? Check out the picture! Actually, my adventures started on the drive across the Nullabor, but there’s enough material there to write a book with (which will be coming soon!) so I won’t blog that here just yet. So here we go: Fern Pool.

For me, it’s natural wonders that make me go ‘wow’. You know how every now and again, you get a benchmark by which you measure certain events in your life? (Like how my worst travel-sick experience was after having had curry chicken at Cameron Highlands in Malaysia before being driven round and round and round and round down the mountain… It was the meal that kept on giving… But anyway. I was probably 6 or 7 at the time. That WAS the benchmark for travel-sickness for me for. It stayed the benchmark for close to 20 years. Until Cairn. But this entry is not about Cairns. You’ll have to ask Chris about that sometime. He was the one who had to smell it. He and the other 90 odd people on that ferry). Well, Karajini became my new natural wonders benchmark.

On the Friday of my first week in Newman, I met Ash at the department dinner. We got along quite superbly, and he invited me along to a camping trip which he and several other staff were taking the next day. We convoyed in four cars to Karajini National Park from Newman, two cars having started earlier and arriving about 2 hours earlier. Ash’s car suffered a flat tyre on the way, which he very efficiently repaired. And but for the heat – and the cold! – thanks to his car’s temperamental air-conditioning system, we arrived relatively unscathed. We only had time to take a quick dip in the pool before driving off to make camp on the border of the National Park (don’t have to pay camping fees that way!). But my goodness it was nice. Check out the photos in the photo album. There were multiple layers of small waterfalls leading into separate rock-pools before flowing into a river that cut its way through a gorge. Absolutely magnificent.

You can see from the pictures how many various strata there are in the gorge wall. Even if it was a single layer of sediment laid down every year, you’d still not be able to count them all. And take note of the anticlines and synclines – how much pressure and heat would have been needed to squeeze THAT together! Also, check out the change in rock type from the deep ochre red to purple slate. In one of the pictures, you’ll see a whole flow of slate-type rock, suggesting that a volcano must have erupted at some point further up, and that lava had flowed down and solidified.

While everyone was having breakfast, Ash decided to lever off his punctured tyre from its rim to squeeze in an inner-tube from his previous car. The inner-tube came from a Hilux, and he had a Subaru. But you know how boys think: If it doesn’t fit – make it. In any event, his efforts saw the tyre-lever puncturing the inner-tube.

We returned to the pools the next morning for exploring and swimming. A great time was had before the rest of the party decided to head home. Ash was very reluctant to travel without a spare tyre, so while everyone headed home to Newman, we decided to head towards Tom Price to repair the punctured tyre instead. It was a slim chance, being a Sunday; but worth a try nonetheless.

So we pulled up at the only petrol station in Tom Price, which had a nice big garage annexed to it with two massive, bright, shiny roller doors and words like ‘Bridgestone’ and ‘Yokohama’ printed in big, bright, shiny letters across the top. ‘Even if they were shut, perhaps they could make an exception?’ Ash thought out loud. ‘Of course they might!’ I replied. It’s a small country town. People do things like that. And they would have, I’m sure. If the garage was still in operation. Which it wasn’t. So he asked the lady at the counter if she knew where he may be able to get his tyre fixed, and she gave directions to the industrial area of Tom Price: ‘take a left, then another left, then another left…’ to which I replied ‘that’ll get us back to where we started!’.

Luckily, the road curved, and we did find the industrial area. It was obviously shut, so we went out the back to the connecting house, knocked on all the doors – and there was obviously people inside because there were – no kidding – 6 cars in the driveway and the air conditioner was on. Ash rang the numbers on all the trucks, left messages, but to no avail. So eventually, we had to drive off. As we pulled away, Ash noticed a pile of tyres by the dumpster at the front. We figured that they wouldn’t put a brand new tyre out by the dumpster, but it seemed too good to be true: there amongst that pile of bald, busted and bunged-up tyres was one that was not only the right size for the Subaru, but was also in very good nick! Ash noted that a valve was needed, so we returned to the gas station to see if they had any. They didn’t, but suggested we try the hardware store. So we drove to the hardware store, which was, luckily, still open. Bought the valve and went and found a shady spot under a tree by the shopping centre, where Ash proceeded to lever off the punctured tyre from its rim while inflating the inner-tube with his air-compressor. In my attempt to be useful, I snap the valve in two. Thank goodness it came in a pack of two. In his attempt to be impressive, Ash gouges the edge of the tyre with the lever. Nonetheless, with style to rival McGyver himself, the man manages to get the old tyre off its rim and the new permanently-borrowed tyre onto the rim with nothing more than two metal poles, a bottle of olive oil and a nice thwack with said metal pole across my left shin.

So we returned to the petrol station to pump up the tyre. Found that we couldn’t because the pin which stopped the air from coming out of the valve was also stopping the air from going into the valve. Back to the hardware store to find a something-or-other to fix it (ask Ash, I can’t remember what it’s called). Couldn’t find it there, but a guy at the counter heard Ash asking questions about it, and said he had one at home. So we followed this guy back to his house, he took us to his shed, went to a little drawer and took out the something-or-other and we headed back to the petrol station to fix the problem. Took a while, but Ash does his thing and we try to pump up the tyre again. Whatever it was he did, it worked, because the air was going in fine. It was also coming out fine. From the bit that was gouged out, and from the reason why the tyre was dumped out with the rest of the garbage in the first place.

So! BACK to the hardware store for a puncture repair kit. Then BACK to the petrol station to fix the holes. FINALLY get the wheel done and we were on the road again. Rather than heading straight home, Ash suggested we visit Fern Pool, which is actually in Karajini as well. And it was a good thing we did, because it was amazing. Check out the photos.

The first bit was a little slimy, so we walked through some bushy bits where there were bats and bamboos would you believe. The water was an amazing shade of turquoise and it was at the perfect temperature. There was nothing more relaxing than floating on my back, surrounded by nature and no one else, looking up at this perfectly blue sky – I was starring in my own Radox commercial. I tried to get a ‘nature’s massage’ under the waterfall, but it was beating my contacts out of my eyes, so I’ve taken some photos of Ash doing it instead. Swam around with the fishies until some men yelled out that a storm was coming and we’d get trapped in a flash-flood if we didn’t get out of there quick. And that was my first trip to Karajini, Tom Price and Fern Pool. Well worth the horrendous rash I caught from something there that covered both my legs the day after.