Only a single day in Tom Price … but we’re here a day earlier than expected too. That means we’ve got a day up our sleeve to use before we get to Broome. So an extra night at Karajini, 80 mile beach or Broome. It has to happen somewhere, so we’ll see what happens.

Today we had booked a mine tour … at 3pm. What else can you do in a drinking town with a mining problem? Plenty actually. We settled on checking out a few lookouts and sights as there weren’t really many other activities that caught our attention.

The first lookout we went to was up at the top of Mount Nameless. There’s a rough 4wd track that gets you up there. Mt. Nameless is WA’s tallest mountain that you can drive up. Views up there aren’t bad either. You get a good view of the town, the mine, the hills that Lang made, the hills that Langs daughter will chew up. There’s a geocache up there too, which makes it the highest one I’ve found.

 

The Prado climbed up there with no fuss and slid its way back down in a surefooted manner too.

We also had a quick look at Kings Lake, nice picnic area near the caravan park. The lure of the park pool was calling the kids so they ended up back there. I went into town to fruitlessly try and find some things that I knew I wouldn’t find … but had to try. The hardware store has a good bit of everything. Not only hardware, but auto parts, car stereos, caravan parts, TOYS (3 aisles of toys), just about everything … except what I was looking for … naturally.

We’ve got some close neighbours camping here.  There’s a pair of Galahs nesting in the top of a pipe beside the van.  They disappear down the pipe, head first, to tend to business.  Any slight tap on the pipe sees at least one of them climb back out to sit on top to survey the situation.  Interesting!

3pm rocked up, as it does every day, about mid afternoon. The kids jumped out of the pool and were insta-dry. The tour requires a hard hat and safety goggles, so we collected those. Like on most tours they proved completely useless. There was never anything above our heads that a safety hat would protect against and the safety goggles were more useless than my sunnies would be at keeping the dust from my eyes.

The tour guide was full of information and was giving it to us at a good pace to allow us to be entertained by, yet forget all of it. Well maybe not all of it. Between the whole family we’ve managed to remember that the trucks cost $4.5 million bucks. The tyres cost about $80,000. The trucks hold 240 tons. They go at 40kmh. They have great fuel economy of about 20 litres per kilometre. Luckily they hold 8000 litres and that lasts them a whole 24hrs. That was about all that floated in one ear and got caught in the weeds. The rest is lost for all time.

The tyres are the height of the coach we were on.

Subtle reminder to give way to the heavies

Can't even see the bottom of the big hole

Big boys digger

Big boys ute. 26,666 slabs of beer or 240 tons of rock ... your choice.

The huge mining trains come in and out of here too, on their way to Dampier, and the rail line is only 1km away. We don’t hear them at all … that’d be the difference in having good track maintenance I guess. You can hear the crossing bell and you can see the trains moving, but that’s it. Pretty amazing considering the weight they’re carrying.

Back to the van via the local Coles. Kel was hyperventilating since its the first real supermarket shes seen for awhile. They had all the goodies from home available at regular Coles prices. Gotta be happy with that. She did behave herself somewhat though. She ‘only’ went in for a loaf of bread. 4 shopping bags full when she came back to the car.

Dinner was Chicken Schnitzel and Caesar salad … fresh from Coles. Homemade M&M cookies baked fresh in the Jayco oven for desert. Kel’s a legend!!