More Geology, Less People
More Geology, Less People
by Brian Churchman
One of the best sunrise hikes I have ever done was at Keep River National Park. After an exhausted midnight arrival of the type that warrants no tent stakes (who uses those anyways…), no fly and an open flap with your leg exposed to all manner of sting-savvy creature; I arose early (unstung hero) with the itch.
You know the itch.
You’re on the road in another country. The world is your oyster that you have depearled, slurped down with some chilled vodka, and adapted into a sweet diamond ring case for an aquatic-themed marriage proposal.
You wake invigorated at the first hint of sun, looking around wildly. There is something higher than yourself just to the north…you scrape together water, camera, can of tuna and roll out. After brushing your teeth, of course.
Myself and a friend scrambled for more than an hour to the top of the behemoth sandstone formations near the campground, reaching the top as the sun was just beginning to do its job for the day. What a view! The temperature had not yet reached Retreat level, and the rest of the world slept on.
Glorious.
We stayed at the Gurrandalng campsite, which offers a 1 hour walk to the aforementioned sandstone cliffs and is clearly the nicer of the two campsites here at the park. I suggest leaving the trail as much as possible for some playtime amongst the rocks if you do the walk here.
Both camping sites have rustic toilets, barbeques and some tables, and though the Jarnem campsite itself may not be anything to send postcards home about, the walks from this site at the end of the road in the far north of the park are fantastic. Stunning views, some great examples of aboriginal art, and 8 kilometers of good old fashioned hiking will remind you why you traveled here to what the less geographically interested would refer to as “the middle of nowhere”.
This is very much a somewhere. Scramble about the geology appreciating the position of this national park between the Victoria River escarpments and the sandstone habitats of the Kimberley, and if you get the chance, catch that sunrise.
It’s a doozy.
How’s The Drive?
Earlier I noted that the Jarnem walks were in the “far north” of the park. By far I meant 28 kilometers, as that is the length of the main road that is 2WD accessible and often corrugated. The entrance to this main road is merely 3km east of the Western Australia border along the Victoria Highway, and as usual beware of flooding during the wet season, in this case November to April.
