Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine October 2017 | Page 96

94
Travel | Karijini
1
There’s a real joy in listening to celebrated indigenous Australian
chef Mark Olive, aka ‘The Black Olive’ (www.blackolive.net.au), speak
about his love affair with Karijini National Park – even if it comes with
the very real risk of wanting to book the next flight there.
“I’ll never forget the moment I first saw
the textured landscape of dust, salt, rocks
and canyon forming a magical patchwork before
my very eyes,” the affable Olive enthuses as he
describes his first flight over the park some 10
years ago when he was invited for its official
opening. “I could feel the isolation of the area
certainly, but what really struck me were the
magical colours of the sunset that showered
the rolling landscape,” he says. “It was all
I needed to realise that, yes, I had a job and
a calendar of events and deadlines to meet,
but at the end of the day, I was just a dot
in an enormous, incredibly beautiful yet
incredibly remote landscape.”
It’s important to pause on the word ‘remote’ for
a moment and pay it the respect it truly deserves
in this instance. Picture a gargantuan spread –
627,422 hectares in size and teeming with
escarpments and mountains rising out of the
region’s flat valleys – located in the Pilbara,
some 1,400km north of Perth. You can get there
either by taking the 15-hour drive along the
Great Northern Highway or by flying to
Paraburdoo or Newman and then driving the
remaining three hours, but whichever method
you choose, one thing is clear: even Australians
who think nothing of driving 150km to meet
friends for lunch would agree that Karijini
National Park is a little ‘out of the way’.
Those who make the trek are rewarded with the
kind of dramatic landscape that inspired
Australian poet Dorothea Mackellar to pen her
poem, ‘My Country’ – a weather-beaten scorched
earth filled with breathtaking gorges, towering
sheer-sided chasms measuring up to 100m deep
2
1 Karijini’s rocky, red earth plays host to over
800 species of plant and is best explored during
an early morning or late afternoon walk.
2 Chef Mark Olive’s cooking masterclasses
are one of the highlights of The Karijini
Experience, an annual festival held during
the Easter school holidays.