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Published: August 16th 2012
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Day 40 – Wednesday 8
th August – Karijini to Barradale Rest Area on the Warlu way
We had a long driving day ahead of us so we got up early to pack up and managed to leave the campground by 8.30am. It always seems to take us at least an hour to pack up each time we have stayed for more than one night in a place and consequently used most of our gear. On the way out of the park we stopped at Mount Bruce, the second highest peak in Western Australia, and did a very short walk to a lookout over Marandoo open cut mine, one of the iron ore mines in the Pilbara. The mine was quite a long way away but because of the scale of the operation you could still see the trucks and other machinery looking like Tonka toys.
After about 100kms we had reached the mining town of Tom Price. During a small window of mobile coverage we made a call to the visitor centre to see if we could get on the mine tour at 11am. Unfortunately it was fully booked and we couldn’t wait until the next day
for a tour because we had already booked a campsite at Cape Range National Park. Instead we checked out the local bakery (can report that the sausage rolls and cream doughnuts are sensational) Coles supermarket and liquor store. We have finally found a place in WA or NT where you a) can buy cask wine and b) buy wine at any time of the day.
After refuelling with groceries and alcohol we stopped at the Shell petrol station for diesel and water. The next places we will be camping at have no water so we need to make sure our tank and all water containers are full.
Back on the Warlu Way we kept on motoring until we reached the Barradale Rest area. This is a huge rest area on the site of the former Barradale Roadhouse, which is presumably why so much land had been cleared. From a size perspective this was the mother of all rest stops and there was plenty of room for at least 100 caravans and tents. But just two toilets! Compare this with many of the rest areas we have driven past which have room for maybe a maximum of 10 caravans
(and which are often full by mid afternoon as the grey nomads settled in for the night).
As we parked up the trailer and got out the tent we saw an emu in the distance. How very Australian. And our Karijini neighbours with the bad taste in music were also there. They had parked far enough away from us that we didn’t hear their stereo this time.
We had an easy dinner of roast chicken and coleslaw round our small campfire and went inside at 7.30 to play games (Angry Birds and Pass the Pigs) in the warmth of the tent.
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