Tom Price & Karrijini

Our road to Karrijini once again takes us on some of the worst corrugated unmade dirt roads I've seen, but at least we've got our permit to go on the Rio Tinto railtrack for the last part of the journey and it proves to be a real blessing. Apart that is for the 30 minute wait at a level crossing because an iron ore train which is 2.25 kilometres long, stopped down the track with its' last truck sticking just one metre beyond the detector that indicates the train has gone through and lifts the barrier!!

We arrive at Tom Price once again feeling a bit battered but relieved. Today's van damage was the loss of one of the shackles from the chains joining the van and car, plus the fire extinguisher has been ripped off its attachment. A trip to the shops to search for replacements finds us at Muzzy's hardware store (very apt). Apart from shopping we just relax for the rest of the day and decide to go on a tour of the mine in the morning.

Tom Price, named after an American geologist who pushed for the developments of the iron ore deposits discovered in the Pilbara and died on the day the developments got approval, is another pure mining town developed by Rio Tinto. It is developing more and has a future, as they are now transferring ore from other local mines on trains to the processing plant ready for moving on to Port hedland. It is an amazing open cast mine with statistics that you struggle to take in. They are also moving towards having the gigantic trucks and trains being unmanned and controlled by people in Perth. Each train is worth absolutely millions of dollars and there are trains every hour every day on a continuous basis. Along with other similar mines at Mt Newman etc, they are one of the driving forces of the Australian economy. It's all quite interesting to me as they were customers of mine when I worked in Perth in the 70s and helped to analyse the quality of ore and map the extent.

On to Karrijini to meet up with Chris & Jenny, something that has been in the planning for about 2 years. The road is once again extremely corrugated causing more things like the door handle to come loose. We are thrown around like a pin ball, after putting air in the tyres at Tom Price and so let some air out en route. We are later to discover that the pressure gauge used at TP has read dangerously low, causing us to be far too inflated. Another fuse blown and some more bits rattled off, but our destination is pure bliss. Savannah Eco Park. Truly in the bush with beautiful views and birds flying around the trees. A fantastic moment when C&J arrive about 30 mins later. The next stage of our journey is starting.

We learn that the roads round Millstream have been closed after some heavy rain. Seems like we got out just in time for a change!!

The following days see us down and up (as opposed to up and down) many fantastic gorges, Weano, Joffre, Kalamina and Dales to name a few. All very different and stunning in their own ways. A black snake on the track and waist deep water stop our trek down Weano, but nevertheless still stunning. Kalamina has more rock colours and structure and some vegetation as it's a bit wider with many birds. Dales Gorge is memorable for the scrambling hike along the gorge base and its wildlife, with swims in the Circular Pool and Fern Pool at each end to cool us off. These four days deserve much more to be added, and photos do not do justice to the scenery, but it is all truly memorable and hard to describe.