Rodney Campbell's Blog

It was getting late and everyone else had left quite a while ago so it was time for me to be heading out of the main walk at Kalamina

Hanging On

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

I could easily have stayed here for a few hours more (well if the light would stay :))

But sunset was fast approaching and I wanted to shoot over the gorges with the drone during sunset and twilight if I could

The Mirror

Still with the sun near the horizon and out of the gorges it was perfect for shooting wider shots in the gorges including more of those gorgeous rock walls and the reflections in the glassy water

Green

Seams and Shards

 

 

Kalamina Gorge has two walks available once you reach the bottom of the gorge from the lookout above at the carpark

It’s just a five-minute walk taking you down some steep rock steps to the base of the gorge

To the right is a few minute walk to a small permanent pool, complete with waterfall and draping ferns

The longer walk to the left takes perhaps an hour along the base of the gorge till you reach the end at Rock Arch Pool

It’s hard to give you a sense of what it’s like down in the gorges at Karijini. Still images with the D-SLR tend to just give you a close up view of a tiny portion of the scene and wide stitched panorama’s tend to just flatten the view

As it was almost sunset and everyone else had left the gorge… and I was alone. I got out the drone near Rock Arch Pool and took this 360˚ spherical panorama so you could look around and view it in “normal” perspective as if you were here. Well as if you could float 30m up in the air at least 🙂

A little magic at the blog end and you can view the end result as an interactive 360˚ photo. Using your mouse or keyboard (arrow keys) you can control your view and pan around the scene (and even zoom in and out).
Clicking the square box icon towards the top left corner also allows you to run it full screen

The sky is all white because; it’s still very bright up there compared to the gorge which is now in full shadow with the sun low to the horizon, and the drone can’t point the camera up (more than 30˚) to take images there

The gorge walls and the water pool is nicely exposed however and lets you see pretty much what it looks like here in good soft light

If you turn around 180˚ you’ll see the natural rock arch this place is named after

Rock Arch Pool

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

Possibly one of the most underrated gorge walk in Karijini National Park

Kalamina Gorge is one of the park’s lesser known attractions due to being located deep within the park and away from the accommodation options

It’s not as deep as the other gorges, Kalamina makes up for it by offering stunning reflections on still pools and glowing red and orange walls

Green and Gold

It’s also one of the more open gorges at the bottom with a wider fairly flat base. This allows you to more easily see the lovely coloured rock walls and the water pools

Alone

Reflect

One of the gorges in Karajini National Park that I had not been to before was Kalamina Gorge

On my middle day at Dales I headed over here by myself to check it out

Angular Rush

Unlike most of the other gorges which were either close to the Dales Campground end or the Eco Retreat end of the park. Kalamina is about half way between the two accommodation areas

Kalamina also requires you to drive a way on sketchy dirt roads. The 6km drive out to the gorge on Kalamina Road from Banjima drive is particularly rough

Fall

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

Once there however you are treated to a lovely gorge for walking. Once you navigate down the rough stone steps at the start you have a relatively wide and flat walk along the base of this gorge

It’s probably once of the easiest gorges to walk in and best done in late afternoon to sunset like I did here

Kalamina is quite wide and open (unlike the gorges at Weano (near the ECO Retreat)). Which means it’s open to the sky so having late afternoon light bouncing down off the gorge walls rather than directly down into the gorge in the middle of the day is much better. Both for walking and especially for photography

Kalamina Shine

 

Once it got dark enough (at the end of astro twilight) I went for a short walk up the campsite to one of these old large termite mounds. I wanted to use it as foreground interest in a vertical milky way panorama

Lining things up so it looks like the milky way is spilling out of the top of the mound 🙂

Might as well make a selfie version whilst I’m here too…

Spilling Ants