Thursday 30th May – Tom Price to Karijini

We had booked a mine tour this morning so it was a quick breakfast and a fuel up to be at the information centre at 9:30am.  Had to get our hard hats and glasses before piling onto the bus with 38 others.  The driver did not stop talking for almost two hours of the tour – lots about Rio Tinto, the mine, the equipment, the trains, the processing of the ore etc.  Six trains per day move the ore from Tom Price to Dampier.

Tom Price Mine Tour

The trains are 2.5 kilometres long with up to 234 trucks carrying up to 30,000 tonnes of ore – something like $3 million worth of ore per train.  Other interesting facts include:  the dump trucks use 20 litres of fuel per 1 kilometre when pulling up out of the pit; trucks have 200 litre motors that run generators that run electric motors on the wheels; women are encouraged as drivers as they are gentler on machinery.

Visited the op shop looking for pillowcases to store stuff in (pots, wok and the like) in the front locker of the camper – stops the rubbing against each other.  Also bought a couple of sheets as we had only bought one pair with us.

After lunch at the man made lake just out of town we headed for Karijini.  Stopped off at Mount Bruce (WA second largest mountain – 1,235m).  Walked to a lookout where you could see another mine (Manandoo) in operation.  Lots of wildflowers along the way.  More and more appear to be coming out each day.

Arrived at Dale’s Campground in Karijini and set up camp in Euro Loop