Thursday, May 20, 2010

WA-Tom Price






We sadly left Exmouth and the Ningaloo Reef area and headed inland. We had been hugging the coast for most of the trip in WA but had heard magical stories of Karajini National Park so decided that a detour was in order.

Tom Price, on the way to Karijini, is 635 klms from Exmouth and is a town of about 5000 people, most of whom who work in mine related jobs. The Rio Tinto iron ore mine here is huge and most of the ore is railed to Karratha for shipping overseas. We drove to the top of Mt Nameless, 1128 metres above sea level, and is the highest accessible mountain by vehicle in Western Australia, where we looked down on part of the mine site. This mine has been in production for over 50 years and still going strong.

As much as we love the ocean, the drive through the various red coloured ranges made the trip visually appealing and we were appreciating the differences in the rock formations. We spent two nights in Tom Price preparing for Karajini where we would not have power or water. So, we filled the water tanks, checked all the batteries, shopped and we’re ready to go.

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