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Published: June 22nd 2011
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Giant Komatsu 380E
can hold 200 tonnes of iron ore. An interesting fact is that 25% of the drivers are women! Monday 13th - Even though we were going on another tour today we had a bit of a lie-in but we were still checking in at the Visitor Centre at about 9.15 to make sure of our places. With half an hour to spare we had time for a coffee. Today’s tour was to be a complete contrast to yesterdays – less than two hours and with no clambering in and out of gorges. It was necessary, however, to collect some safety goggles and a helmet from the visitor’s centre which is where the tour started from. There was virtually a coach full – over 50 people – for this tour (including some who we had spent the day with yesterday) which had been highly recommended to us by several people. We were going to tour the Rio Tinto Iron Ore Mine and would be able to drive through the heart of the operations and to look down into the huge cavernous hole resulting from the first major excavation in the area. Current excavations have moved to a new location a short way away but the enormous trucks still passed the old cavern and we would see many comings and goings.
Just outside the town we drove past Tom Price Mountain where, in the 1960s, top grade iron ore was first found. The town of Tom Price was named after Thomas Moore Price, an American raw minerals surveyor who was involved in early feasibility studies on behalf of the giant US company Kaiser Steel Corporation. An enthusiastic supporter of plans to develop the vast iron ore deposits of the Pilbara, he played a key role in the establishment of the industry which has seen enormous benefits to the state and nation including thousands of jobs and the construction of towns like the one that bears his name. Today, Tom Price is one of the most affluent towns in regional Australia.
First, though, we did a brief tour of Tom Price and Bob, our guide (the chap who had taken my booking for the Karijini tour) gave us an insight into how the town had developed over the years. It was built, operated and totally owned by Rio Tinto until fairly recently when negotiations with local authorities resulted in Rio Tinto selling the town in its entirety to be administered as a normal community. Mining still dominates the area but
because of the need for support industries, shops, accommodation, garages etc Tom Price soon became a “family” town with health and educational requirements and the like. Many of the mining staff are still employed on a FIFO (fly in, fly out) system and still live in a mining village totally run by Rio Tinto. But this has been reduced dramatically in recent years and it is expected that, soon, all such matters will be fully integrated into the town. Consequently, Tom Price is now a thriving community with many young families and has an average age of 29. It’s also a very popular tourist destination and, although it’s location near to Karijini was bound to attract visitors, today’s Mine Tour has also become a “must do” when in the area.
After a short drive we began to approach the current mine complex which, as you might expect, was a pretty grim sight. The disturbance of the ground in such magnitude in a predominantly dry area is bound to produce dust and dirt and all of the massive buildings and the many hundreds of mine vehicles all had a brown, almost orange discolouration to them. Bob explained the purpose and
the value of the many huge vehicles of all shapes and sizes that we slowly passed. The sight, outside a truck workshop, of a line of tyres each of which stood three meters high and each of which cost about 50 thousand dollars, brought home the magnitude of the operation both in physical and financial terms. The mine encompassed many square kilometers and although, for safety reasons, we couldn’t approach the current workings, we were able to leave the bus (wearing our hard hats and our safety goggles) to view the original. now dormant workings which were of vast proportions. The area wasn’t exhausted of ore and it’s possible they may return at a later date to continue mining this site. But with so much high quality ore relatively easy to extract in adjacent workings it was unlikely they would ever need to re-open these old workings. We were able to imagine the scale and size of the operation from our lookout and with the huge transporter trucks going past us fully laden to the processing plant and then returning empty to the excavation site, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it was easy to see why the
industry is worth so much to the Australian economy.
After viewing the dormant mine area, we were then allowed, under strict security arrangements, to drive right through, under and around the many sections of the processing units. The end results – two grades of top quality ore piled into huge “mountains”– were loaded onto railway wagons ready for transporting to Port Hedland where it would be re- loaded onto enormous cargo vessels for export, mainly to China and Indonesia. The trains were initially driven by 5 engines to negotiate the hillier area around Tom Price and these would be reduced to two on the lower lying land nearer to Port Hedland. The complete train would be 2 kilometers long and would take a considerable time to pass some of the level crossings in the area. We often heard the loud whistle of the trains even during the night but, try as we might, we were never able to see one travelling during the day as Sarah and Darryl had done. Bob gave us an estimate of the value of a single train load and the figure was staggering – millions of dollars. With an average of four trains running
per day every day of the year and this being just one of several successful mines in the Hammersley Ranges, it was easy to see why this is such a prosperous operation which has kept Australia financially sound while the rest of the world seems to be struggling.
The tour lasted the best part of two hours but, even for people like us who have no real reason to be attracted to it, it was absolutely fascinating and we were so pleased we did it. The rest of the day was spent relaxing, enjoying the sun and the scenery and doing some preparations for our journey towards Port Hedland tomorrow. Originally we were in two minds about going to Tom Price but Sarah’s and Darryl’s enthusiasm about Karijini persuaded us that it was worth a visit - we are so glad we did.
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