6 Wandering Epsomites

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.

Back on the road again. Eighty Mile Beach was an oasis. A caravan park at the end of 10km of dirt road (good road but dusty red). Grassy, green sites, all with water. We weren’t able to get a powered site, but that wasn’t a problem. There were a limited number of powered sites as they generate their own power out here.
There are 3 very popular Station stays south of Broome. Barn Hill, (about 100km from Broome) Eighty Mile Beach, (280km from Broome) and Pardoo (about 360 from Broome). Many nomads stay at all 3 (not big days of driving).

This place is very popular with fishers. Some stay for months! Quite a few have small atvs/quad bikes set up with their fishing gear, chairs, eskies etc! It is a nice camp, but a couple of nights is enough for us. There was a small market on in the lawn area, when we arrived. We even managed to get a couple of jars of home made relish! Later on, there was a memorial service for Vietnam Veterans at the Park’s own memorial site. Sausage sizzle later on. We sat on the beach watching the sunset instead.

In the morning, over the sand dunes onto the beautiful stretch of sand, making up part of the Eighty Mile Beach for our morning walk. It is quite a shelly beach, and also has big tides. Tide was well out at this point. The beach is also accessible to 4wd vehicles, so we let down the tyres and went for a drive, just because we could! This park had a very convenient air compressor to reinflate tyres and a wash down bay. Add to that the fish cleaning bay and offal bins. Very well set up.

We tried our hand at fishing. Not very well I might add. Didn’t really have the right gear for fishing here. A few experienced fisherman caught some small stingrays whilst we were there. Our neighbour caught 1 thread fin. A small shark scared off the rest!

A small goanna wandered through behind our van and then under several others. It was quite used to people being around.
Sunday night was a good night to be there. It was Roast night. $22 got you a feed of Pork and a dessert (citrus or apple/rhubarb tart). Preordering a must. Available to pickup or eat there from 5pm til 6.30. We waited til after 6. 122 meals had been ordered. Not bad for a little place a long way from anywhere. We certainly enjoyed it.
Up and on the road before 8.30. Most leaving the park had already gone by this stage. There was 1 van already at Reception waiting to get in. They presumably hadn’t come far.
We headed for Port Headland. Now in the Pilbara region of WA. Not too much traffic early on, but about 100km out, the traffic changed. It became all trucks (no, make that road trains) with at least 3, but mostly 4 trailers. We drove into Port Headland, for fuel and shopping. Hi Vis work wear was the standard outfit. This is a big export Port for BHP/Rio Tinto and everyone else. Iron ore, salt and whatever else comes out of the ground. Gina Rhinehart, Andrew Forrest, know this area well. Mining /Port Operations everywhere, trucks everywhere, temporary housing everywhere, red dust everywhere. We turned off the Great Western Highway onto the Great Northern Highway, heading for Karijini National Park. Truck after truck, were coming from Newman.
Our stay tonight is at another Station stay, 9 km off the Highway. A good dirt road in, dust red, to get to a quirky Homestead, Indee Station. We were greeted by Helen, who showed us around and invited us to the homestead for drinks at 5.30 to meet everybody. Nibbles provided. This is a working cattle station, so open the gate, shut the gate. We drove out to Red Rock, the Turner River which runs through the property and visited the memorial of a plane crash on the property in 1968. 5 crew died.

We arrived for drinks at 5.30 to meet Colin and Betty (the owners), another couple who were camped there last night, another couple who are helping on the farm for a month or two, 2 quoll researchers who are trapping and tagging quolls on the property and someone else strolled in later. Colin bought the property 56 years ago. He turns 80 this year. Betty married him 20 years ago. Her late husband owned another property up the road (a couple of hundred kms). Colin runs this place on his own, with occasional helpers. Helen is the cook, cleaner etc (only been there 6 months). Betty isn’t too mobile. 400,000 acres. It’s not making much money. They only have 2500 head of cattle. It is a harsh lifestyle, but they aren’t very remote, only being about 60 km from Port Headland. A mining lease on the property has been renewed. It has been idle for 3 years, but they have just started exploring last week. Sheds, equipment, dongas etc everywhere. After dinner, we watched the stars and listened to the occasional train. 3 railway lines run through the property. One owned by BHP. One owned by Gina Hancock and the other owned by Twiggy Forrest. They aren’t into sharing! Perfect temperature outside. It was a different kind of homestay, but very pleasant. Hot showers/loos, roaming young cattle, friendly dogs.
Hitting the red dust back to the Highway, the friendly cattle farwelling us.

Road train, after road train, after road train. Coming and going from Port Headland to Newman. We saw about 50 before we saw another car! Most had 4 trailers, but some had 5, and I’m sure one had 6!
One was pulled up where we stopped for our cuppa. There are a lot of wheels on those things!

Once we turned off to Karijini National Park, there was hardly a truck. More timing than anything else. We checked into the National Park about lunch time. Designated sites, well spaced apart, a few bush loos scattered around, but a pretty natural environment. We are doing an Astronomy tour tonight. A perfect night and setting for seeing the stars! (Photos to come)

This afternoon, we walked down to Fortescue Falls and Fern Pool, which are part of Dales Gorge. A swim beckoned. It’s fantastic swimming in fresh water. It was a little chilly, but water coming into Fern Pool was warm. It was just a bit pounding underneath the falls. Another spectacular area.
Dales Gorge

Fottescus Falls

Fern Pool

Tomorrow, (Wednesday) we will go for a walk along the Gorge Rim and back along the bottom of the Gorge. Probably another swim after that. We actually did the bottom walk first, then the Rim walk, much better idea!