TOM PRICE AND HAMERSLEY GORGE

I’m writing this on our third day here. We are feeling more settled and have recovered from our ordeal. Russ has organised all the repairs, bought a new tyre and has replaced the faulty spare.

Tom Price is an Iron Ore mining town, with a post office, supermarket, hairdresser, hardware etc. Just the bare necessities, except a bakery and a hospital. I’ve tried to book in to have my hair cut, but she hasn’t opened for the last two days! (She’s just rung and I have an appointment at 9:30am tomorrow). I’ll get a bit of a serve from her, because I’ve had a go at cutting it myself.

We have been able to link up to mains water and have a powered site, which is a must, as the nights and mornings are freezing – four degrees – with a very cold wind; the locals tell us that Karijini National Park is even colder – our next destination.

The birds here are lovely; tame galahs and crested pigeons, what haven’t made a nuisance of themselves, but seem to like the company. MM not too happy when they flew up and sat on Parps, though Parps thought it was great fun.

Today, we drove into Hamersley Gorge – Part of Karajini National Park. Spectacular gorge, with permanent pools and waterfalls, requiring a steep walk down steps (and back again, of course)! Large termite mounds dotted the beautiful countryside, amongst stunning white-trunked eucalypts, with the massive Hamersley Range in the background.

The MM had a great time on the termite mounds, until the ants thought enough was enough! One last fling, with the range in the background. Little devils.

On the way home, we took Railway Road. A road that is owned and controlled by the mine, and requires a permit and viewing of a ten-minute video, showing road safety and dangers that may be encountered. I was a little apprehensive, (thinking of our repaired tyres), but the road was better than the Nat Park road that we took to enter the range! We saw a train, and we lost count of its carriages, at what we think was nearly 200!

Two-thirds of the way back, a car came towards us, on our side of the road, rather daunting, until we realised that he was asking us to pull off the road completely, to make way for two wide-loads following. We did so, waited a fair while, then saw these massive trucks, carrying mine vehicles. They took up the entire road width and the wheels must have been four metres high! The MM hid under my seat, they felt so little! They also blocked their ears, because of the noise of the engines of the trucks.

We’ll probably be at Karijini for 5-7 days, depending on the weather and the place itself. There won’t be any mobile coverage, but messages can be left on our Satt phone.