As one of the most popular gorges to visit in Karijini National Park, Dales Gorge offers easy walking trails for the whole family. With incredible swimming holes at Fern Pool, Fortescue Falls and Circular Pool, you could easily spend an entire day here exploring the wonders of Karijini National Park located in the Pilbara, Western Australia.
If you’re looking for more information about how long the Dales Gorge walks take and how difficult they are, as well as everything else you need to know, this is the guide for you!
If you’re looking for more information about visiting Karijini National Park, be sure to check out my Ultimate Guide for Visiting Karijini National Park.
1. Where is Dales Gorge
Dales Gorge is located in the heart of Karijini National Park. It’s a 1h15m drive from Tom Price (the nearest town) to get here and is usually the final place people visit in Karijini National Park who are doing a WA road trip from Perth to Broome.
If you’re coming from the opposite way, from Broome for example, this is the best place to start your Karijini National Park trip. You can stay at Dales Campground which is located just a hop and skip from Dales Gorge and you can totally start your walk from your camping spot.
2. What makes Dales Gorge special
We heard that Dales Gorge is the real highlight of Karijini National Park but we could never find any ‘wow’ photos of this gorge. Other gorges like Hancock Gorge or Knox Gorge looked more impressive to us, and we wondered whether it was bigged up because the walks are supposed to be easily accessible.
Truth be told, Dales Gorge has some of the best swimming holes in Karijini National Park.
Now I don’t say this because the swimming holes will make you feel like you’re in a hidden gem, far from that really. These swimming holes are large but there’s something that feels pretty special about them.
There’s also a couple of hiking trails to choose from and with short cuts to get to the main swimming holes very quickly, you can pick and choose which routes you take, especially if you’re short on time.
3. Check into the Karijini Visitor Centre first
The Karijini Visitor Centre is about 12km from Dales Gorge, and if you’re coming from Karijini Eco Retreat, you will pass it on the way.
Turns out this visitor centre is excellent. We went in thinking “we’ll only spend 10 minutes walking around” but we ended up staying a good hour here.
The Aboriginal stories and history is fascinating and we even overheard one of the guides telling a family how she learnt to swim at Hamerlsey Gorge which we thought was amazing.
You can ask the team here any questions about the park and you can buy reef shoes here too.
4. Then check into Dales Campground
We checked into Dales Campground (our campsite pictured above) before we started our walk because we were unsure how long it would take us and we were running out of light. The campground is run by volunteers and they gave me all the information I needed to make a decision about which route to take.
The Dales Campsites are fantastic and provide you enough space for privacy. I read other websites saying which spot on the campsite they wish they picked but I don’t think it matters. We stayed at Dingo 56 above and it was fine for us.
5. Dales Gorge Walks to consider
So I asked our campsite volunteer how long the Dales Gorge walk would take and he said the entire circuit would take 2 hours, maybe two and a half at most.
Seeing as we didn’t have a lot of time left in the day after we arrived, we decided to take the short cut down to Fortescue Falls and Fern Pool instead. This route took us literally about five minutes to walk down a staircase to the Fortescue Falls viewing area and another two minutes over to Fern Pool.
However, you can do the following trail.
Start are the Dales Gorge car park and turn left onto the Gorge Rim Trail. Towards the end of the trail, you can take a detour to Circular Pool. We actually drove over to the Circular Pool Lookout (pictured above) which looks amazing. This pool looks amazing and we would certainly head back here and do this track if we had more time.
The Gorge Rim Walk trail then continues onto the Dales Gorge Trail which will bring you to the magnificent Fortescue Falls. Here you’ll be faced head onto the falls which you won’t see if you take the short cut (you’ll see it side on unless you walk down to the bottom and around the pool). It would be an amazing ending to the walk to see this waterfall before going for a dip here.
You can then continue onto Fern Pool for another swim before taking the staircase up to carpark. Alternatively, you could do the walk anti-clockwise instead, but I’d go for clockwise so you end with the two pools.
6. What the shortcut route looks like
As I mentioned above, we did the short walk trail instead because we didn’t have enough time to do the whole walk. If you are running out of time, be prepared because the gorges get very dark once the sun goes down.
I asked our volunteer whether I could get away with wearing thongs down to the pools and he said yes. So we just walked down with a towel and swimmers from the Fortescue Falls car park and the easy walk down the steps took us about five minutes before we had arrived to Fortescue Falls. I didn’t once think how I should have worn hiking boots on this walk.
When we got to Fortescue Falls (pictured above), it’s situated in an amazing amphitheatre which has natural seats to sit at enjoy the incredible scenery. You can swim here but we didn’t see anyone in the pool when we arrived.
We then walked two minutes over to Fern Pool (pictured above) and saw a few people in the pool here. There are benches to put your things and even a wooden deck and rail to get into the pool. I have to say, there is something really beautiful about this swimming hole, and you can even sit behind the small waterfall, although the rocks to get up are like ice so I don’t know how anyone does it!
The water isn’t too cold in the pools when we visited in May. We were expecting icy cold water but to be honest it makes a great bath and a refreshing swim before heading back to Dales Campground which doesn’t have any water.
7. What to bring with you
There are a couple of things to know before heading on the Dales Gorge walk trail.
Bring your swimmers & reef shoes
Obviously you’re going to need to bring your swimmers to enjoy the amazing swimming holes here. Bring a floatie as well as they are large swimming holes and will help you swim (remember it’s a fresh water swimming hole so you won’t float liike you can in the ocean). You’ll also need reef shoes if you want to sit behind Fern Pool waterfall as the rocks are beyond super slippery. Always take care if you attempt this. And as an FYI – there are no crocodiles in Karijini National Park to worry about.
Bring your camera
I would highly recommend bringing your camera, GoPro or Insta360 with you to take some photos. If you go for a swim at any of the swimming pools, you’ll be able to keep an eye on your valuables as they won’t be out of sight if that makes sense.
Bring loads of water
Karijini National Park is very dry and you’ll easily consumer double the water you usually would on a normal hike back home. Always bring much more water than you think you’ll need.
Wear a fly net
You 100% need a fly net when visiting Karijini National Park. The flies are intense here and you won’t last five minutes before heading back to the car or campsite otherwise. We searched for one in Bunnings back home on the Sunshine Coast and throughout WA. We found them at a local fishing shop in Shark Bay in WA in the end, so make sure you get one before you come here.
More Karijini Guides to read
Check out our other Karijini National Park guides to help you plan your trip to this exceptional national park in Western Australia.
- 10 Tips for Visiting the Amazing Knox Gorge in Karijini National Park WA
- 12 Tips for Visiting Joffre Gorge Karijini National Park WA
- 13 Tips for Visiting Hamersley Gorge, Karijini National Park WA
- 7 Tips for Visiting Dales Gorge in Karijini National Park WA
- Ultimate Guide for Exploring Karijini National Park
