Karratha to Tom Price

Cloudy, about 25 degrees.

Up early this morning as we had a very long day ahead of us. We had debated about going on Rio Tinto railway road, which is gravel all the way for about 300 kms. But really the fun bus is not supposed to go long distances on unmade roads, so we were concerned that if something happened we would be forfeiting the deposit of $2500. And also getting stuck there would not be fun. So we had to go the long way around through Nanutarra and Paraburdoo. About twice the distance but of course doing 100 kmh instead of 60kmh. Soooo we left Karratha about 8am for the long journey. Stopped at Nanutarra for some fuel and a break. Lauri decided not to get a lot of fuel as it was a lot more expensive than it will be in Tom Price, thought he had enough to get there ok...which almost brought him undone as it happened!

About 40 km from Tom Price the fuel light came on. The van had used up a lot more fuel than he would have anticipated! And just after that we came up behind two huge mining trucks getting shipped in to Tom Price. So back to a crawl for quite a while. Eventually we were able to pass the mining trucks and slowly made our way to town arriving to find a petrol station right at the beginning of town. Phew!!!

The scenery all the way in was stunning! Lots of hills and escarpments, very pretty!