Rodney Campbell's Blog

We arrived at Dales Campground around midday and after checking in to our campsite and setting up we headed off to take our first look at the nearby Karijini gorges.

First stop was Fortescue Lookout. You can easily walk here from the campsite but we were also planning to head over to the Dales day use area and the two other lookouts over there so we drove :).

This was my first real up close viewing of these amazing gorges I’d been dreaming of and so looking forward to seeing for months.

This is a wide panoramic view of the gorge from the Fortescue lookout on the north side looking East-South-West across the gorge. Fortescue Falls itself is way down there at the bottom of the gorge surrounded by trees on the right. This panorama is a stitch of thirteen (13) vertical frames taken at 52mm so it gives a relatively tight view of the gorge itself and spans about a 180˚ field of view.

Dales Gorge

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 52 mm, 1/50 sec at f/8, ISO 125 x 13 Frames

This view gives you a good idea of the structure of many of the gorges out here in Karijini. Layers of red and orange rock, spinifex grass, topped with ghost gums up high and paper bark trees at the base of the gorges. Those gorge walls are about 100m high so it’s a long way down.

Layer Cake

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 100 mm, 1/160 sec at f/8, ISO 100

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

A closer view of the falls from up here at the lookout.

Fortescue Falls

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 160 mm, 1/160 sec at f/8, ISO 400

and the family enjoying the view.

Fortescue Lookout

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 28 mm, 1/50 sec at f/11, ISO 100

I must say I am extremely thankful and grateful for how accomodating and patient my 10 year old daughter was during our entire trip but especially during our five days at Karijini.

She came with me for at least half of my early morning or late afternoon/evening trips in various gorges and was amazingly patient with me wanting to spend literally hours painstakingly taking photographs.

Other photographers totally get it – that flash of inspiration when something catches your eye and you just want to stop and carefully craft the best composition you can and then move on to the next photographic subject and stop again. In this place epic inspiration was EVERYWHERE. Sometimes I might spend half an hour or even hours literally in the one general area taking shots. She knows I love photography and I could not have asked for more from a ten year old child.

Dales Recreation Area

Dales Recreation Area

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