Karijini National Park and Tom Price

We had to choose whether to follow the coast from Exmouth to Karratha, or head off inland to see Tom Price, Karijini National Park and Millstream National Park. While it was about 600km inland to Tom Price, we had heard so much about Karijini that we just didn't want to miss this opportunity to see it.
The journey north east (inland) from Exmouth to Tom Price was hot and long, but the countryside was really interesting. Getting into The Pilbara, the soil becomes blood-red, and the land becomes quite mountainous (and quite well treed). Our drive took a bit over 6 hours because there is really nowhere to stop along the way, and temperatures outside were around 40 degrees. We arrived at Tom Price late in the day and found the nice green caravan park with a pool. The girls were really excited.
We woke the next day to a flat tyre on our car, so Justin spent the morning getting that fixed before we travelled the 100km into Karijini NP. Tom Price is quite a big town (purely there for the mine) so it wasn't hard to find a mechanic and a supermarket. We arrived at Karijini late in the afternoon and set up camp, ready to explore the next day.
Karijini was even better than we expected. It is a huge NP, and has a number of gorges which are all quite different from one another. We went to Fortescue Falls and then followed the river or Fern Pool, where the girls sat on the rocks under a waterfall. There were very few other people these, so we had the pool to ourselves. The water was clear, fresh, and reasonably warm ( it gets freezing in winter). In the afternoon we visited Weanu Gorge, where we carefully hiked down to the bottom and waded through the pools to follow the tack from one end to the other. We had our rock shoes on, so it was actually easier than it sounds. We camped in Karijini again that night, but didn't see any dingoes (we had been told we would see them in the campground). The campground was basic it toilets and no running water, but well kept).
The next morning we got our permit to go on the mining railway road that would take us towards Millstream and then on to Karratha. We then went north, stopping at our last gorge on the way out. Hamersley Gorge was spectacular and turned out to be our favorite. We hiked down into it and found a series of beautiful pools at various levels. It was fairly easy to climb between them, and each was clear and deep. Pia climbed with us, and was passed between Justin and Lisa as we hiked, which she didn't seem to mind at all. Probably just best to show you some photos below, but Karijini is certainly one of our favorite stops thus far.
While we could have stayed there forever, it was time to head to Karratha. We had an overnight stop at Millstream National Park, which really seemed like Karijini's poor cousin. The highlight was camping next to the Fortescue River and catching catfish for dinner - surprisingly good eating!
Photos below are:
1: our camp site at Karijini
2-5: Fortescue Falls and Fern Pool
6: making our way through Weanu Gorge
7-10: the amazing pools in Hamersley Gorge