Spirited Away. Words and images by Jonathan Camí. Published in Vogue

Words and images by Jonathan Camí. Published in Vogue

SPIRITED AWAY 

Tasked with capturing the scenic gorges, pristine waterfalls and rugged landscape of the Karijini National Park in remote Western Australia, Jonathan Camí discovered a sacred Indigenous location that has resonated with him ever since. 

In the heart of the Pilbara region, just north of the Tropic of Capricorn, there is a harsh and unforgiving land of mostly red dirt and prickly grass – a land that looks like it was shaped by a  giant being that had scratched the surface with enormous claws to reveal the ground beneath. 

This place, the Karijini National Park, is a vast and hilly wilderness in the Hamersley Range of Western Australia, which covers more than 6,000 square kilometres. It is the traditional home of the Banyjima, Kurrama and Innawonga peoples, and ‘Karijini’, meaning ‘hilly place’, is the Banyjima name for the Hamersley Ranges. 

Arriving at Karijini National Park, my first impression is not what I expected. Having been commissioned as a photographer to capture the landscape, I was told I’d be travelling to one of the most beautiful parks in the country, but sitting outside my tent, exhausted after the long trip, and taking in the view of a few termite mounds and a scattering of gum trees, I didn’t feel very excited. 

Perhaps the odyssey from the east coast had taken a toll on my mood. To get to this remote area of Western Australia from Sydney, I had to fly to Perth and wait a couple of hours for the next flight – a single-corridor plane, mostly occupied by burly men – heading to Paraburdoo, a mining town between Broome and Perth. 

At Paraburdoo’s dusty airport, surrounded by fly-in fly-out miners, all wearing steel-toe boots and fluorescent clothing, I felt conspicuous in my black attire. I picked up my four-wheel-drive mining truck (the only option available), preset for the minefields, with emergency lights, reflective stickers and even a buggy whip, and set out on a two-hour drive. 

With the late afternoon sun illuminating the red hills in the distance, I crossed the railway tracks that run through the Pilbara and arrived at the Karijini National Park entrance. Although it was a beautiful sight, after my journey of more than 12 hours, I wondered if reports about the park were greatly exaggerated. 

My luxury tent at the Karijini Eco Retreat, the only facility offering accommodation inside the park, awaited. Although I had my own open-air ensuite, I had to share the toilet with some little green tree frogs who lived there – apparently they enjoy the environmentally friendly wastewater system. I was told to just flush them away, but I couldn’t help feel a little guilty. 

On that first night, a cold beer and a meal at the alfresco restaurant restored my body, lifted my spirits and revived me. And the following morning at sunrise, after a well-deserved sleep interrupted only by the dingoes howling nearby, I made my way towards Joffre Gorge. During the short walk, my eyes were opened to how dramatically the land changes and how beautiful it is. Wandering between the infinite sky and the endless dusty soil, I spotted the gorge for the first time, a red scar in the land. The crimson wounds of the cliffs have been slowly carved through eons, deep and cool, sheltering you from the heat, their entrails filled with water and life. 

Walking over the red dirt, between the spinifex and mulga patches, the trail started to descend, the shades of red on the cake-layered walls gradually darkening, the temperature dropping, the vegetation altering, the water revealing itself. 

At the bottom of the gorge, I savoured the silence – there was nobody around, no reception for hundreds of miles, just the water and the call of a whistling kite. Suddenly, those 12 hours travelling were worth every minute. I finally understood how unique this place is. 

Alone with my thoughts, I lost track of time and had to hurry back to the campsite to meet my tour guide. We spent the rest of the day in the restricted area, exploring different gorges, pools and pristine waterfalls. I swam, climbed, jumped and walked between Red Gorge, Junction Pool, Weano Falls, Kermits Pool, Hancock Gorge and Regan’s Pool, the latter named after James Regan, a State Emergency Service volunteer who lost his life attempting to rescue a tourist in 2004. 

As the guide reminded me, the ‘class six’ restricted area can only be visited with an authorised tour operator or with prearranged approval. Unfortunately, many tourists don’t understand how dangerous and untamed this land is so flash flooding, collapsing rocks or falls from lookouts have claimed lives. 

The next day, cruising between a few more gorges and lookouts, I arrived at a very special place. After driving one hour through corrugated dirt tracks and avoiding huge goannas sunning in the middle of the road, I stopped at the Dales Gorge car park. From the lookout, it is very easy to walk down to the gorge through a walkway over the old track. Following the water, leaving behind the Fortescue Falls, the trail ends at a stunning rockpool named Jubura (Fern Pool). The lush vegetation and turquoise water are magnificent, but what captured my heart was the tangible sense of being in a very sacred place. Jubura was once a birthing pool for the Indigenous women who inhabited the area as far back as 20,000 years ago. Signs ask visitors to be respectful, not to jump in the water, to use the ladder to enter the water quietly and avoid making loud noises. Being the only person there, the silence was only interrupted by flying foxes and bird call and the history of the site felt omnipresent. 

As part of my trip to this part of Western Australia, I had visited the Mount Tom Price mine, west of the park. It is one of 12 iron ore operations Rio Tinto has in the Pilbara. Heavy machinery and explosives are used to extract the iron ore, leaving behind different kinds of wounds in the land – like the infamous Juukan Gorge, where ancient rock shelters dating back more than 46,000 years were destroyed by the mining company last year. These man-made scars leave nothing but a wasteland behind.

Leaving Karijini National Park on my way back to the airport, watching the moon set on an endless landscape, my mind was still stuck on Jubura. I thought about how generations of women have preserved such a pristine place, and how a profit-driven multinational and reckless state government have managed to destroy the nearby hills in just 50 years. Maybe there is a way to utilise, preserve and respect the land in unison, like the First Australians have always done. Having spent time in this extra special place makes me hope so.