Cool Gorge Pools and Cool Night Sky

Andy and I have discovered that we are getting so much sleep that we wake up earlish bright eyed and bushy tailed!. Most morning we have seen the sunrise on our morning run. This morning we started our run by heading to Galah Loop, where we wanted to place our names on the list to attend the Remtrek Astro night which had come highly recommended. We were told the guy Phill puts the list out at 7am. We were surprised to find 5 people already there.

Phill swaggered down the road looking like he just got out of bed. We were alarmed when the first person booked in for 15! Then the second for 8! Thinking there was no hope of getting on to this tour, we were grateful to hear the next person wanted 2 places, the next 1 and so the odd were looking up! Then the guy in front of us said 8!! Back to looking dubious especially when it was established that the lady behind us had already contacted him and was booked in for 4. Phil looked at us and asked how many in our party. We replied 4. He asked could we bring our own chairs. To which was said yes. And we were in by the skin of our teeth! We continued on our morning run along the Rim Walk.

Karijini is a large national park that is divided into several sections. Today's plan was based on not moving the car and exploring around the Dale's Campground area. Circular Pool, Fortesque Falls and Fern Pool were all on the list.

Unfortunately we learnt yesterday that access to Circular Pool was restricted due to a recent rockfall. Nevertheless we walked from our campsite, to the Circular Pool Lookout, on to the Three Way Lookout before descending to the gorge floor. It was surprisingly green, with thick rushes hugging the waterway and many tall eucalyptus. Much of the walking was easy - rock platforms provided a nice flat walking path; rockfall areas with boulders of varying sizes needed to be negotiated and stepping stones helped to avoid getting one's feet wet.

It was busy down there. We were required to wait at several one way points. After about 800m, awe found ourselves at the base of Fortesque Falls and it was like central station! People were like lizards, lounging on the rock ledges adjacent to the falls soaking up the sun recovering from a cool dip! I was stunned by the amount of people in this area but really shouldn't have been that surprised I suppose as it was the closest pool to the campground, with a short man made path with stairs to access it.

We decided not to stop here but continue on to Ferm pool another 300m further up the gorge. Good choice as it was less busy. We stripped off to our bathers and faced the cold water. Once in we swam over to the falls and climbed up on the rock ledge beneath. The water from the falls was much warmer than that of the pool but not warm enough to hang around for too long, we swam back across the pool and climbed out. It seemed that while we were enjoying our swim, more people had arrived so we decided to go back to Forteque Falls to lounge like lizards! 

On our return there, many people had left but so had the sun! We found ourselves a rock ledge where we enjoyed watching the antic (many stupid) of the visiting tourists. 

Katy and Andy decided at the last minute to plunge into this pool despite the rumours that it was much colder than Fern Pool. They survived and swam to the other side to admire the falls from below. Once all dried and clothed again it was a short walk across the campground back to our site.

We relaxed the afternoon away before cooking an early dinner in time for the astronomy night. With chairs in hand and head torches on we made our way over to Galah Loop for the astronomy night. 

Credit - Remtrek Astronomy

Camp Constellation has an amazing 360° panorama of the cosmic canopy and Phill with over 20+ years of delivering Astro nights was an extremely entertaining guy having won over the crowd early on and had us all giggling away.

Not only was he entertaining but he delivered his knowledge on the nights sky wonderfully. With a high powered laser he pointed out various stars, constellations and planets. All with interesting and engaging stories. 

Phil had set up three telescopes for us to take turns viewing various things. First was Alpha Centauri  - one which Andy called out and was subsequently teased about!  Surprisingly Alpha Centauri is actually two stars when viewed through a telescope. 

Next to look at was the Jewel Box located adjacent to the Eta Carinae which by the way is expected to go supernova. This refers to a star exploding and perhaps has already but the fact that it is 7500 light years away, perhaps the light hasn't reached us yet! Now that was a bizarre concept to think about!

He then directed his telescopes to area known as the Omega Centauri Globular Cluster which was made up of a 10 million stars and is a mere 16 light years away.

The Milky Way which by the way is over 100 billion light years from one end to the other, way was next to be examined.

And finally by this time Saturn had rose high enough in the nights sky to be looked at.  Using the two larger telescopes, we could see its rings. These rings made up of rock and ice are slowly being sucked in towards Saturn and will eventually disappear although not in our lifetime.

We highly recommend the Remtrek Astronomy night to anyone going to Karijini.