Overview
About Fortescue Falls Lookout
Why stop
- Waterfall and gorge view for a 150 m rim walk
Heads up
- The pool requires a separate Class 3 descent
Map
Where it is
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Karijini Tour Guide
Your drive to Fortescue Falls Lookout, narrated.
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Karijini National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Karijini audio tourRecorded for this place
Fortescue Falls and Fern Pool“You're approaching Fortescue Falls and Fern Pool in Dales Gorge. Spring water keeps the falls flowing year-round, spilling over rock steps into a fern-lined pool.”
Plays as you drive up to Fortescue Falls Lookout in the Parkwolf Karijini Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
- Dales Campground: A Base for the Eastern Gorges
- Circular Pool Lookout and Dales Picnic Area
- The Bee That Shakes a Flower
- Which Way the Water Moved
- 141 audio storiesacross Karijini’s roads, triggered by GPS as you drive
- Wildlife heatmapsfor Dingo, Rock Wallaby, Mulga Snake, and 13 more
- Works offlinemaps, 22 trails, 30 places, and audio download before you lose signal
- CarPlay readysimple controls built for the drive
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
More about Fortescue Falls Lookout
The quick rim viewFortescue Falls Lookout is a viewpoint above Fortescue Falls at the top of Dales Gorge.
Fortescue Falls Lookout is a viewpoint above Fortescue Falls at the top of Dales Gorge. A 150 m Class 1 path from the Fortescue Falls car park gives you the falls from above without committing to the descent. Keep this one for a quick look if you're visiting Dales; reaching the pool is a separate, steeper visit.
Why the water staysFortescue Falls is spring-fed and one of Karijini's few permanent waterfalls.
Fortescue Falls is spring-fed and one of Karijini's few permanent waterfalls. It drops more than 20 m over natural rock steps into a fern-lined pool. From the rim, you can take in the cascade with the red gorge walls around it.
Stay on the rim or go downThe lookout approach is Class 1.
The lookout approach is Class 1. Stairs past it descend into the gorge on a Class 3 trail, so treat the pool visit as a separate effort. The cliff edges are about 100 m high and can have loose rocks; stay well back. Leave the gorge if rain starts because flash floods can come through. Summer temperatures often exceed 40°C, so plan around the heat. Toilets are at Fortescue Falls car park; shaded picnic tables are at the wider Dales day-use area. There's no listed food outlet at this stop, so bring a picnic if you want to eat here.
Frame the fallsFrom the rim, keep the stepped waterfall low in the frame and include some of the red gorge…
From the rim, keep the stepped waterfall low in the frame and include some of the red gorge walls and trees. That gives the falls context and makes the height of the gorge clear; a tight crop of the water loses the point of this view.
Wildlife
Wildlife in Karijini
44 sightingsDingoMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
18 sightingsRock WallabyMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
15 sightingsMulga SnakeMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
36 sightingsHamersley Rock MonitorMost seen around 9 AMSighting map
13 sightingsWestern BowerbirdMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
34 sightingsChildren's PythonMost seen around 8 PMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Karijini. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
