Camping in otherworldly Karijini National Park
Summary
If Karijini wasn’t in such a remote part of Australia it would be firmly on the top list of National Parks across the country. As it is though, the remote nature of the park means that there are far fewer visitors than many of the other parks and, combined with the breathtaking gorges and hidden waterfalls, gives you an otherworldly feeling of descending to the centre of the earth . . . or at least to the next beautiful rock pool area. Very much worth the 3-4 hour drive inland from the more traditional sites of Western Australia
Top tip – be sure to camp, or at least stay overnight. The stars are immense because of the lack of light pollution this far inland
highlights
#1 Descending further and further into the gorges of the National Park
#2 Discovering and then climbing down into the refreshing rock pools
#3 Catching those glorious big sky sunsets in this remote part of the outback
#4 Walking along to the lookout points to see just how steep the various valley drops are
#5 Sitting looking up at the stars in the particularly bright night sky in this part of the world
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Red Desert Experiences around the World
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone