Tom Price WA

The mining town of Tom Price sits under the mountain Mt Nameless. The little clearing you can see is the caravan park & to the right of the photo is the town. These mining towns consist of a small town shopping centre containing a fuel station, supermarket (Woolies. or Coles), pharmacy, cafe, & sometimes a clothing store. Newman had a Rockmans & Tom Price a privately owned store. Surf & sport labels are popular in these outback towns despite the lack of the ocean. A hospital, school & sporting fields just about complete the infrastructure. Plus of course a police station.

 

Tony did another mine tour, I left Noel & Pat in charge of him & opted for stocking the larder & downloading photos.

Also as you can see the WPH&S was a little more relaxed for tourists with only hard hat & goggles required.

This mine runs slightly differently to the BHP in Newman. BHP use rail Rio Tinto use conveyer belts. A new 28 km belt has just been completed.

This is one of the guys who were involved in the construction of the belt. they were on the mountain for one last look before leaving town looking for the next job. All agreed it had been a good experience however they didn't seem sorry to be going.

 

 

View of the mine

We took a drive up Mt Nameless, deciding to leave the 4 hour walk for another time - never! A bit of a hike by car with some steep & rough winding areas that test the nerves - mine anyway - & Pat told me she had her eyes shut at times.

As you can see the views were sensational from the vantage points at the top of this mountain, the highest point in WA.

Heading out of Tom Price towards the coast the country was very hard & rocky. Wildflowers were quite abundant, mostly various mauves & purples. As the tar road was quite narrow with a few rough edges I could only make some snaps through the windscreen as we passed by.

 

The trees stunted & twisted by their environment are bonsaid by nature. Their dead relatives sit amongst the live scrub having given up the fight for life after too many hot dry seasons, their tortured grey weathered limbs reaching out in all directions like trees in distress.

 

 

 

 

Our nights camp was in a freeby. We set up camp in the dry riverbed along with about 50 other vans.

Despite plenty of room we had a couple of young backpackers set up close by reinforcing our opinion that they are a frightened of our wildlife. After dark we could hear a pack of dingoes howling, screeching bats as they passed over on their nightly flight & the cattle that were roaming through the area bellowing to each other. Not sure how Miss Asia & Mr Europe were feeling in their little nylon igloo shaped tent?

 

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