Paraburdoo and Tom Price

Yesterday we stopped for the night a tiny mining town called Paraburdoo.  The mine was located in large mountains and was clear from every spot in the town.  On the way to Paraburdoo it was a long drive, it was a bit sad to leave the ocean behind.  The scenery on the way was spectacular, the mountains towered over us as we drove along side them.  

Once we arrived we had a look at the old, giant mining truck called Terex that was on display.  It was working between 1976, 1987 and could carry 154 tonnes of Iron Ore.  It was one of the 17 Jolly Green Giants which in their time carried 285 millions tones together, in its time (1976) each truck cost $675,000.   This morning we drove from Paraburdoo to a another larger mining town called Tom Price.  When we got there we did some shopping at Coles, we hadn’t shopped at Coles sine we had left home.  Then we went to the Info centre and got a Hard Hat and Protection Glasses because we were going on a mine tour!  A bus came and picked all the people doing the tour and then we headed off to the Rio Tinto Iron Ore.  We drove around  the mine and got told lots of facts about the mine.  We also got to hop out and look into the main hole.  It used to be a tall mountain but now all that is left is a very large hole.  We watched the diggers and trucks go pass and the really really long train with 236 wagons get piled up with all the Iron Ore the bidders had dug out.  They have 5 trains come in per day and each train gets loaded with 27,376 tonnes so that means each wagon gets 116 tonnes!  

After that we went to drive up the tallest mountain you can drive up in WA called Mount Nameless.  It was a very rocky and very steep drive but when we got to the top it was worth it.  Up the top it was 360 degree spectacular views.  We could see the whole town and mine far below, it was like standing on the very top of Eureka Sydeck.  After we took a lot of photos we went back down the steep mountain and then drove to our next stop Karijini National Park.  On the way we saw a dingo in on a hill.  We parked our caravan set up and relaxed for the rest of the day planning what we would do tomorrow.