Karjijini NP is located about 250 km south of Port Hedland, and even further away from Shark Bay. The park covers a large part of the Hamersley Range, parts of which are up to 2.5 billion years old. The park is basically a high plateau with a number of deep canyons, and some rounded mountains rising over the plains.

As the high plateau lies about 700m about sea level, it can be quite cool there in winter, even with sunny weather. Temperatures can rise to 40 °C in summer, though.

If you have ever read the "Red Mars" trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson - Karijini is what I imagine Mars would look like after being terraformed!

The park is really worth the trip from the coast - plan to spend at least 2 nights there, to have enough time to walk down to some of the gorges, at least! And come early - the campgrounds will be closed when full; we were lucky to find a spot on a spillover campground near the Visitor Centre.