Day 55 - Tom Price. Friday 1st September.
JD- As Tim and Fidge had work (heard Tim's V8 Landcruiser burble off at 5.30am) we planned a cruisey morning up until 2pm at which point thanks to Chris and Lucy (Onslow) Betterley we were to be collected from the Visitor Centre for a tour of the Tom Price mine.
Tom Price, the town, was constructed in 1962 to house the mine workers and is almost entirely owned by Rio Tinto, apart from a handful of houses that were sold off in the Nineties when Tom Price went through a period of "normalisation". As said Normalisation started in the early 90's and has been a slow but continual process since. It is an attempt to bring private enterprise into the town and I guess to make the residents (mine workers and their families) feel like they were in any other Australian country town. In my opinion it worked, a few years back Tim sent me some footage of TP. Back then I was only taking 10-14 days off a year, the footage did little to encourage a visit but I'd have to say our opinion has changed somewhat, we really enjoyed our stay and the place.
When constructed the houses were numbered as they were built. So the first house built was number 1, the 500th house built was number 500 etc etc. The Agnew's live in number 6, yep you guessed it, it was built just after number 5 and just prior to number 7. From what I was told in TP there are 4 different house floor plans ,3 bedroom and 4 bedroom, a mirror image of the 3 bedroom and a mirror image of the 4 bedroom. The Agnew's inhabit a 3 bedroom variation (not sure if it's a mirror image or normal) and we were encouraged to treat it like our own, which we gratefully did. 6 Lilac Street is also home to Nullabour (Nully for short) the Agnew's red kelpie, who was very excited that we weren't heading off for work or school and also Fidge's beloved chickens of various sizes and shapes kept in a run at the back of the yard. Apparently it's not uncommon to also find an orphaned wallaby or similar in the Agnew's backyard that is being nursed back to good health by the Agnew clan.
Our girls and Fidge walked Archie to school. On their return Fidge headed of to her nursing job at the 8 bed T.P hospital and we nicked off to explore the town centre (it's about 450m from the house!). After a good coffee and a look about we drifted back to the house for a morning of washing, playing with Nully and the chickens and getting chased around the backyard by the rooster, Old Cock. Old c*** was the boss of the chicken run but he recently got his butt whipped by New c*** so now he lives outside the pen because he kept unsuccessfully trying to regain his title. He'd obviously called Nicole's bluff because she walked around the backyard with a big stick all morning!
In what seemed like an instant it was time to assemble at the visitors centre to be collected for our tour of the mine. After being fitted for hard hats and safety glasses we were on the bus and away. We passed what the bus driver described as "the only gold mine" in T.P which turned out to be the one and only service station in the area... boom boom, we turned up Mine Road and headed for the mine entry boom gates. Once we had been granted permission to enter from the local control room the bus driver also had to radio through to Rio head office in Perth to gain permission from them. Through the gates we wound our way up to the look out. Mount Tom Price is no longer a mountain it's a massive hole in the ground! The entire mountain has been excavated, loaded on the trains and shipped out of the country, mostly to China.
It's a "no nonsense" operation within in the mine. If the end of the mining boom hadn't ultra streamlined the processes any excess fat would have be trimmed in the last year or so as the iron ore price has been well south of the cost of production. Safety is still number one priory but production comes a very close second place. The 2.5 kilometre trains must leave on time full of ore or someone's booked a "window seat" out of the place. Every employee or contractor, wether they know it or not plays an integral part in ensuring the trains go fully loaded and on time, 24hours a day 7 days a week, no questions. The tour was very impressive, mining on a massive scale and Tom Price is one of many mines in the Pilbara region.
As with the Argyle Dam, I won't bore you with the facts and figures, Wikipedia has those details if you are interested.
With my head still spinning from the mine tour we returned to 6 Lilac St where we were greeted by Lotte and Fidge. Lotte had returned from camp (6hour drive home) and Fidge was busy preparing dinner for us, the Betterlys and the Bach's. The Big Fella returned from work about 6.30-7. Fun night was had by all, BBQ, few sherbet's, lots of noise (the Betterley's have 4 young boys) and lots of laughs. 10pm pulled us up again, tomorrow was Saturday, Chris had work at 6am, Archie and Lotte had Tee ball (Archie had 2 games) Archie had football, Fidge and Tim had to organise the junior football sausage sizzle and trophy presentation and Fidge had her game of football. Also it was the local association Grand Final in the evening played under lights between TP and Paraburdoo! But first up Tim and I had a few hour window in the morning for a motor bike ride which I had been looking forward to for a few weeks!!