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Published: July 14th 2009
Bob and the Birds
As you can see I am still very popular with the birds.
The one on my left shoulder gave me a bit of a tug on my ear when it wanted more food. This was Tom Price caravan parkTom Price - Karajini National Park - Karatha
We left Exmouth about 9am heading for Paraburdoo and Tom Price. At 4pm it started to rain and it was still 100k to Paraburdoo, so we pulled into the Beasley River rest area along with seven other travellers. The open fire was inviting and we all gathered around telling travelling stories with the mandatory happy hour drinks.
Next morning we continued on to Tom Price with a short detour around the streets and shopping centre of Paraburdoo.
Everything was going fine until we made the final turn to the Tom Price Caravan Park.
A section of the road had been torn up to remake the road and we were confronted with nearly one kilometre of watery red mud about 200 mm deep.
When we finally arrived at the park both the car and the van were covered in red slimy mud.
We hosed the van and the car for nearly one hour and still did not get it all off.
( I mean Jacquie gave advise while I pointed the hose )
The caravan park at Tom Price turned out to be quite good, large grassed sites mostly with
Kangaroo
This is Jacquie entaining her friend at Happy Hour in Tom Price Caravan Park. concrete pads outside the van door. The wildlife was very tame, the birds would eat of your hand and the Kangaroos didn’t need much encouragement to join us for tea when we ate outside.
The size of the mining operation at Tom Price is quite staggering, the huge dump trucks made our 4WD seem like a match box toy. There is an almost constant line of rail trucks taking the iron ore directly from the mine to the ship loading facility at Dampier via Rio Tinto’s own rail line. The trains are over 3Km long and pulled by two big diesel loco’s.
I wonder if our climate change is because Australia in getting lighter and China is getting heavier !!.
Our next move was to Karajini National Park, this is the largest National Park in WA and what I consider to be most spectacular. We found a camp site in the Dale’s Gorge camping area where we could use our generator during daylight hours. This means we could stay a little longer as we could recharge the vans batteries during the day.
We visited all the gorges that are spread over 40 Km. The gorge walks
Dingo
We were warned not to leave any food or clothing out at our camp site at Karajini. This guy is the reason why. are all rated in difficulty from class one to six.
Class one for wheel chairs to class six needing climbing and abseiling gear. We found that we could manage class four that suggested that you needed a moderate to high level of fitness.
The climbs in and out of the gorges certainly tested our stamina. The views along the walking trails at the bottom of the gorges were breathtaking. Sheer deep red rock walls rise vertically several hundred feet and the rivers below winds through huge rocks, trees and ferns. Fish are swimming in the many rock pools and waterfalls spill over the rocks into deep pools, many great for swimming.
After five days we were nearly out of water so it was time to move on. We drove around to the northern site of the range to visit the controversial Wittenoom Gorge.
The WA Government is dissuading tourists from visiting Wittenoom because of the danger of airborne asbestos fibres caused by the asbestos mining. Other opinion say’s that recent tests reveal that there is no more asbestos fibre in Wittenoom that any other Pilbara mining town.
We took the chance and went to look at the
Dales Gorge Trail
This was the start of the gorge walk. We climbed down the gorge wall including a bit down a vertical ladder.
Karajini NP old town and the beautiful Wittenoom Gorge.
The town is almost a ghost town, only a dozen residents are still left, the wide bitumen streets have grass growing in the cracks and most of the shops and houses are deserted.
The wide bitumen road that leads into the gorge and now closed mining sites is slowly deteriorating. The road over the many river crossings has been washed away and it requires 4WD to negotiate the rocky crossing.
The scenery is still beautiful, we drove as far up the gorge as we could. It was a little eerie driving around the streets at the end of the gorge where the mining facility was once housed. There is an endless array of bare flat concrete slap where the houses and workshop once sat.
We found the abandoned airstrip near the Wittenoom township. There was a huge bitumen strip and tarmac slowly decaying with grass clumps taking hold. We drove up the strip for one thousand eight hundred meters, turned and powered back. At 130k I pulled back on the wheel and nothing happened so we had an earthborn trip back to the caravan waiting for us at Auski Roadhouse
Dales Gorge walk
This is part of the track on the 3 k walk to Fortescue Falls. We had to climb over rocks and negioate stepping stones over the creek
Karajini NP Caravan Park.
The next day we departed back to the west coast and Karratha.
We stayed at the Point Sansom Caravan Park about 30 k’s north of Karratha and made this our base for exploring the area.
Karratha and Dampier are the port facility for exporting iron ore, Liquid Natural Gas and salt.
We took the organised bus tour of these towns to get a feel for the area.
The tour took us to the iron ore storage and loading facility, we watched giant conveyor belts spew iron ore directly into the ships at a rate of two thousand tonnes an hour. The big ferris wheel of rotating bucket big enough the hold a small car scooped up the iron ore from the long rows and deposited it on the conveyor belt.
We also visited the Liquid Natural Gas plant. The gas from the North West shelf is piped to this plant and converted to liquid for loading into the special tankers that carry it. These tankers are powered by the gas boils of the liquid and they leave a little liquid in their holds for the return trip.
The LNG mostly goes to China for about
Dales Gorge trail
This is more of the Dales Gorge trail. We spend spend four hours here climbing down one end and up the other and spending some time at the falls.
Karajini NP 5c a litre, I had to pay 96c a litre for the auto gas in our 4WD just 10 k away. !!!.
There are also several large salt mines in the area. Salt water is pumped into large open pools for evaporation. Salt is then collected and transported to the port in trucks and fed into the ships via conveyor belts like the iron ore.
You can probably imagine that Jacquie was not that enthralled will all this mining stuff particularly when she found that I misrepresented the truth when I told her that diamonds were found with iron ore.
My punishment was to stand outside every jewellery shop in Karratha while Jacquie interrogated the staff. I was not allowed to complain as normally would be the case.
Our next move is to Pardoo Station, Eight Mile Beach and Broome.
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Graeme Nightingale
non-member comment
Fantastic photo's
The photos are magnificent. You will need to enter some of them at the club when you return. Great to hear the trip is going so well. I look forward to hearing more when you return. Love to you both. G.