Things were very different in Karijini national park 12 years ago. Firstly we were without kids and also the gorges were unrestricted so exploring them was a real adventure. Now to do the same you have to pay an adventure tour company a lot of money and use lots of safety equipment. Back then the park ranger came around with a load of inner tubes and some rough directions of where to go into the gorge and off you went!
Coming up to the "no way back" 5 metre drop into the pool below.
Heading down the natural slide to the jump
That blur is me hitting the water at some speed. I actually got quite a smack as my face hit the water.
Below - floating down the gorge on our inner tubes.
Heading down into Hancock gorge with our friend Ilya.
Steffi diving into Kermit pool.
Sadly from this point the route has now been blocked off but then we were free to make our way down to Plunge pool.
Me in plunge pool and you can see why it is so hard to make your way back up from here. There is one way which is a climb 10 metres up around the edge to the left.
Ilya and Steffi relaxing on a tree branch high above Junction Pool.
The climb out of the gorge went up an almost sheer rock wall and the last bit was a narrow edge we shuffled around about 100 metres up above the canyon floor. Still sends shivers down my spine thinking of it. Most dangerous climb i've ever done.
Below is a photo of where we came out after the rock ledge. You can see just how high we were.
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