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Published: October 20th 2009
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Day 176 - Karijini National Park to Tom Price
We slept really well last night, must be all the fresh air! It’s another bright and beautiful morning here in Karijini National Park and with no ceremonies to stand on we’re away from camp just after 7am.
There’s just one more gorge, Hamersley, that we’d like to visit but it’s at the opposite end of the park to where we are and seemingly it’s easier to reach it from Tom Price rather than from here.
The road is pretty quiet this morning, not much wildlife or other traffic to speak of. Only the warning sign of the 8% climb gets our attention, we haven’t done one of those in a while but we know PIE will handle it easily.
Our initial stop in Tom Price is at the first of two tyre outlets. Unfortunately they don’t have any in our size so we try the second lot. They have one but it must have been hand crafted with rare diamonds around the rim because they want $160 for it!!!! We consider our options whilst driving to the caravan park! Have a look on Google maps to find out
where Tom Price is, it’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere and there are no other ‘towns’ around us so our options are fairly limited.
A lovely lady greets me at the caravan park reception and she relieves me of $34.50 for a powered site for one night! Tom Price by name, pricey by nature?! I think so! She talks me through the facilities on site and I get a bit excited when she says they have a pool. The excitement dwindles however when she corrects herself saying that because people have been getting in there fully clothed they have shut it today to clean it! I’ll bet it’s those pesky miners again! Tee hee!
I explain our tyre situation and ask if there are “any more tyre outlets in town” or did they have any lying around the site at all? There’s none on site but she tells me there are three outlets in town, the two we’ve tried and another along the mine road. She gives me their card and I trot off to let Darryl know. We set the caravan up on the pitch and then Dar heads off to check out this other
tyre place hoping to save us some money. About 30 minutes later he comes back saying that he’s driven for about 15 minutes along the Mine Road but found nothing so drove back to ask the lady for more details. At this point she tells him that it’s about a 60 km round trip! People’s interpretation of “in town” is so very different out here, a 60 km round trip is nothing to them but it’s a fair old way to us! Dar phones the guy instead and after all that he doesn’t have what we need so we’re left with the ‘diamond encrusted’ $160 tyre option alone.
When Dar gets back to the tyre shop (!) the guy who gave us the original quote is out on a job and the lady in the reception tells him the cost is actually $175! A freshwater pearl must have been discovered alongside the diamonds or did the original quote not include GST or fitting?! Dar pleads his case and tells her of the early $160 conversation which to her credit she takes his word for and stands by it, so Dar pays the $160 including fitting and quickly leaves before
the boss returns to argue!
While all this was going on I was happily typing and uploading the missing blogs back in the caravan! I sent a text message to the Elliotts to see how there travels were going and it seems we could be on course to catch up with them in Exmouth, fingers crossed!
With all the tyre business sorted out we jumped in the car and headed out to Hamersley Gorge. The road is sealed initially but for the last 45 kms it’s a good gravel road with a tiny bit of corrugation. We suspect that quite a few people have taken a wrong right turn when they get to the sign post for the Hamersley Range because somebody has scraped the word ‘Gorge’ with an arrow pointing straight on! Luckily we had a map so knew which direction to head. It takes us about an hour to get out there but was well worth the drive, what an awesome and impressive place.
It’s a steep walk down to the swimming hole and the water is freezing cold! We swim for about half a km through the gorge taking in the fascinating rock structure,
colours and numerous spider webs! It’s such a beautiful place and there’s only us in the water and a family eating their lunch on the rocks.
There’s a natural spa pool here but to get to it you need to clamber over rocks and along ledges all the while being careful not to slip because it’s very wet and covered in algae in places. Then you need to wade through the waist high water before clambering back up onto the rocks until you reach the entrance. It’s not very far it’s just not that straight forward! The entrance to the ‘spa’ is narrow and the rocks are very slippery but the water is divine. What a gorgeous little spot and yet again we’ve got it all to ourselves! We have a laugh taking some photos, we brought the tripod up with us so balanced it quite precariously on the rocks and set the timer going! That meant Darryl diving back in the water and paddling across to the waterfall, always good for a laugh!
We had one last swim down at the bottom pool when we finally dragged ourselves from the beautiful spa then made our way back
up the steep climb and headed for ‘home’.
Along the way we caught sight of another really, really, really, really long train carrying iron ore for Rio Tinto. The last carriage was parked just after the rail crossing and the engine was a couple of ks up the road! Imagine getting stuck waiting for that to come through - it would take a while!
Back at the camp ground Dar got on with the tyre swapping so we would have two new tyres on the caravan to continue our travels while I did some more catching up on the blog. Thanks for sending the comments, we love hearing from you all so keep them coming!
We haven’t had a shower since leaving Broome, although we have been swimming most days so that stops us humming too much but tonight we treated ourselves to a nice hot clean up! I still haven’t used the hairdryer though, that’s nearly three weeks now, go me!!
For the first time in weeks we actually put the TV on tonight too and I was stunned to hear Stephen Gately had died. I wasn’t a closet Boyzone fan or anything but he
was only 33 so it’s a bit of a shock.
It was great to catch up with Kangaroojack on Skype and hear a bit more about their Cape York adventure. They too got stung for tyres in Tom Price but to the tune of $1800 for their Nissan Patrol, Andy still winces when he thinks about it! It makes our bill pail into insignificance somewhat!
And so to bed, we leave here tomorrow heading for Exmouth and the glorious Ningaloo Reef where the spectacular marine life is waiting!
Dar and Sar
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Lynne Coulsell
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Now Chick, pooing in the woods I could maybe do at a push but no hairdryer for 3 weeks...................lost for words!!!! That Spa pool pic is awesome xxxx