It’s locations such as this water-filled grotto, left – which is a short scramble upstream from the main pool in Karijini National Park’s Hamersley Gorge – that attract photographers from all over.
Photo Credit: Nick Rains/Australian Geographic
Oxers Lookout, in Karijini National Park overlooks the site where four of the area’s most significant gorges – Weano, Red, Hancock and Joffre – meet. It was named after one of the region’s first doctors.
Photo Credit: Nick Rains/Australian Geographic
The Milky Way soars over a gum near Karijini Eco resort.
Photo Credit: Nick Rains/Australian Geographic
A Sturt’s desert pea (Swainsona formosa) in the far west of the Pilbara on the Burrup Peninsula in Murujuga National Park.
Photo Credit: Nick Rains/Australian Geographic
Local guide Pete West leads a group of intrepid explorers on a “journey to the centre of the earth” in Karijini National Park in the heart of the Pilbara.
Photo Credit: Nick Rains/Australian Geographic
Folds of rock in Hamersley Gorge, Karijini National Park.
Photo Credit: Nick Rains/Australian Geographic
Typical rocky outcrops surrounded by spinifex of the Burrup Peninsula.
Photo Credit: Nick Rains/Australian Geographic
Corellas sip water from a slow leak from a water tank at the Karijini Ranger Station.
Photo Credit: Nick Rains
Handrail Pool in Weano Gorge, Kirijini National Park. The tiny figure of Australian Gepgraphic writer Karen McGhee enters from a slot above a tiny waterfall to the right.
Photo Credit: Nick Rains/Australian Geographic
The Tasmanian tiger etched in this stone has been extinct across Australia’s mainland for millennia. It’s found on the islands of Murujuga Sea Country in the Dampier Archipelago.
Photo Credit: Nick Rains/Australian Geographic
Burrup Peninsula landscape lit up by the flare from the Pluto gas refinery.
Photo Credit: Nick Rains/Australian Geographic
A dignified gum tree standing near Dales Gorge in Karijini National Park.
Photo Credit: Nick Rains/Australian Geographic
The reflections of Kirijini National Park’s glassy Fern Pool.
Photo Credit: Nick Rains/Australian Geographic
The narrow entrance to Weano Gorge in Karijini National Park.
Photo Credit: Nick Rains/Australian Geographic
A tenacious gum carving out a life in Joffre Gorge, Karijini National Park.
Gallery: The Pilbara landscape of stone-etched stories
By AG STAFF•1 May 2014
It’s locations such as this water-filled grotto, left – which is a short scramble upstream from the main pool in Karijini National Park’s Hamersley Gorge – that attract photographers from all over.
Encompassing 200,000sq.km of some of Earth’s most ancient rocks, this remote part of WA is covered in stories carved in time.
Read the full story in Australian Geographic magazine #120.