Today (Thursday), we clocked up the 10,000km mark. As we are driving along, Russell comments that we were about to clock 10,000km on the trip meter. So I looked over to watch it click over. It went 9999.9, then 0.0. A slight anti climax!
Tonight was another great camp meal (cooked by someone else). Burger/sushi night $10. Not quite what you expect to go together. The cook does the burgers (which were yummy) and his Japanese wife prepares the sushi. We grabbed sushi for tomorrow’s lunch. Wander over to the common, with a drink/chair for a chat with other travellers. Very pleasant.
We bit the bullet today and bought the pumice stone. The feet were in great danger of shredding the sheets. Apart from the colour, (a deep shade of red!) the wearing of thongs constantly, has taken its toll. Some tlc required.
5 days of washing to catch up on after arriving at Tom Price. We had not had power for 5 nights and no mains water for 3 so weren’t able to use the washing machine. Washed away some of the red dust.
At Karijini NP, we did an Astronomy tour. An on-site Astronomer had 3 large telescopes set up at his private site. About 15 attendees. A family from Strathfieldsaye were part of the group! Learned a few things about the galaxy. A couple of photos of the moon through the telescope.
Today we had a lazy morning, (catching up on news and politics). This afternoon, we did a tour of the Rio Tinto open cut iron ore mine. Tom Price sits 747m above sea level and is WA’s highest town (or Top Town, as it is known). Nothing existed here before 1965. The town and infrastructure was built in 18 months. It was known as Mt Tom Price, but they mined through the mountain along a very rich vein of iron ore. The Mt. got dropped. It is a massive operation, with the town, now having a population of about 5,500. The mine (and a couple of others nearby) produce about 320 million tonne each year. While we were doing the tour, 4 trains were lined up to be filled. Each is 2.5km in length!
Hard hats and safety glasses were a requirement.
500m down. The truck looks tiny.
The dump trucks have a 240t carrying capacity. $4.5 million dollars each.
Manual lawnmowers. Free range cattle.
Tom Price Golf Club. A little rough!
Time for us to head to the coastline. A big day of driving for us tomorrow to get to Exmouth. A couple of days there, then 4 days at two places around Ningaloo/Coral Bay. Looking forward to swimming/snorkeling.
Bye for now.
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