A visit to Karijini National Park and its consequences

Just now we are on our way from Port Hedland to the Karijini National Park, about which other tourists already told us that much. These reports sounded just too enticing and thus aroused our curiosity: stories about a completely incomparable landscape with carmin-coloured rock faces; narrow, up to 200 meters deep gorges, which are suited perfectly for adventurous climbing (of course you can choose the simple way too) and at whose ends there are small, green oases, rushing waterfalls and cool, crystal-clear pools which invite to swimm (furthermore there aren't any crocodiles).

We can only quite assent to all these stories. It is great fun to descend to the gorges, to flounder about in the ponds, to climb up the waterfalls and dive down again into the water, and to enjoy the beauty of the nature at the same time. Since the red tableland with its deep gorges is located admidst one of hottest regions of Australia - and thus in a solitude -, the national park is not overcrowded. A true insiders' tip! Not until days later we can pull ourselves together to leave the park.

And now we come to the hitch of this trip: the streets, which lead to the national park - and of course lead off too -, are dirt roads the bigger part. In the course of time some of the famous Australian corrugations have evolved. This means that the streets are nerved by small hills, which towers every five centimeters or so. Therefore we are vigorously shaked for hours. That gnaws not only on our nerves but also on our material, viz our bikes, especially because of the weight we carry along with us.

Not until in Exmouth - 400 km away from the national park - we notice for the first time that this trip has entailed problems: the rear wheel rim of Martin's bike is ripped in some places. Further corrugations would presumably cause a rupture of the rim and thus would make the continuation of our journey impossible.

We are glad to be in a city and not somewhere outside in the bush - that's how the Australians call the secluded regions - and so we look for the local bike shop, where our relief and hopes are immediately destroyed. This so-called bike shop rather is a DIY store which as well sells some bikes for children. Thus replacement for the rim is not available. The only 26-inch mountain bike present is already a few years in the shop and its shifting system is completely out of date. In no way the rim of this bike does fit to Martins bike since we are not able to install the sprocket to the freehub body. By mischance this is the only bike shop in the periphery of 400 km, but according to the shop assistant there is still hope: possibly he can order such a rim from his subcontractor. But as he fetches the catalog it gets obvious that we can abandon hope straight away, because the catalog is at least as obsolete as the bikes. Eventually he can only help us as far as telling us the address of the next bike shop 400 km away and insistently advising us to take the bus.

By no means we want to do that, thus we check by phone if it is possible to get a compatible rim in the next city. We decide to rather take the risk of a rim-break and ride on. If the worst comes to the worst we'd have to push the bike or maybe even carry it. In this case we surely would come up with something. The main thing for us is not to change to motorised means of transport. Before we pull out, we still reload as much weight as possible from Martins bike onto mine. Unfortunately only now we notice that it is not possible to mount our baggage trailer and the rack together on my bike because of its smaller frame. Needless to say that this would have simplified the whole thing.

The trip from Exmouth toward Carnarvon starts out promising: at no time before we had that heavy adverse winds, and since I have to cart much more weight than usual, we make slower progress. Besides, Martin has to dismount whenever the street condition deteriorates. The cracks in the rim get more and more, the first spokes start to break, but we still have luck: The rim survives further 400 km and we reach Carnarvon. Here the first thing we do, still before shopping food, is going to the bike shop, where we order the hopefully more stable rim. Unfortunately there is none in stock, but it is no problem to get one from Perth. Now the rim is driven to us in one of the Roadtrains lying between bananas and melons. - It sounds absurd, but even though most of the largest fruit plantations of Western Australia are situated in Carnavon, the fruit is first brought to large storage depots in Perth with refrigerated trucks, from where it is delivered with other trucks to all the supermarkets in the area, which includes Carnarvon. Thus the fruit is even more expensive than in other parts of Australia, although it grows here. Luckily it is possible to buy fruits directly from the producers too.

Now we have to wait some days for the rim. There is not particularly much to see in the area, however, we are in fact satisfied enough with the well supplied supermarket. To laze around for a few days sounds delightful for us. Admittedly the conditions for camping aren't ideal, because it is quite cold and windy here. Beaches with showers seem to be inexistent, and in the town we have not seen a convenient place for sleeping. Farther away we already spotted a few adequate places to spend the nights, but that late in the evening we want to cycle that far no more.

While we are discussing our sleeping possibilities, an older Australian addresses us. Barry - that's the name of the nice gentleman - tells us that he lives in a small house together with his brother Philip and that they have a caravan in their garden. He offers to us to stay there as long as we need to. Wow! Perfect!

And there's more to it than that: we are not only allowed to sleep in their caravan and use their lockable garage for our bikes but also can use their house, which means we have access to a shower, a washing machine, and a fridge. In addition there are a pool table and Philips Playstation with endless games available to us (just consider that the man is approx. 70 years old!). Simply amazing!

Thus we spend most of the time of our waiting for the new rim with Barry and Philip, who become good friends to us. When the rim finally arrives, we consider to stay on a little.

Nevertheless we already miss the cycling and thus we say good-bye to the two brothers, knowing that without much doubt we will not see them ever again. But I am certain that we will never forget them.

written by: Birgit und Martin

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