Leaving Exmouth we headed inland to Tom Price, hoping the weather would be better. The sky was still dark but we saw patches of blue sky so things were looking up. We had been warned about Nanutarra Roadhouse being expensive and it didn't disappoint. Gas was $1.28 a litre, our most expensive to date, and diesel was $1.99 a litre! We didn't bother with food as we heard their hamburgers were $12 to $16, the cost of a meal at our pub back home.
We dropped into Paraburdoo to be greeted by cows walking the street! Emu's in Exmouth, Cows in Paraburdoo. Apparently these cows continually walked into town to feed on the green grass and they have trouble keeping them out. Onwards to Tom Price, we arrived late and booked 2 nights in a dormitory and also a site for Trakkie. We opened Trakkie up and it stunk! We pulled out as much as we could to air out for the night and the next day we aired and dried what we could. Some nice fresh mould had already set in so I spent a fair time scrubbing it away from the roof. Unbeknown to us, the mould remover we used also removed the water proofing capabilities of the canvas. The first night back in Trakkie and it started to rain heavily and all where I had scrubbed on the roof and along the seams began to leak! We got out the towels and tried moppig it up as it came through, hoping the rain wouldn't last long. After half and hour and no let up in the rain, I had to go out and try to rig up our tarps to keep the rain off. In the heavy rain and wind this wasn't very easy and when I eventually made it back inside I was quite cold and soaked through (obviously). Meanwhile, Sharyn was flat out trying to mop up the water coming in. It did the trick though and we eventually got some sleep in before day break. The kids slept well, in fact they didn't even budge. What rain???
On one of these days we had a young (32) German guy ( Jaman, pronounced Yah-Man, very Reggae. Actually his real German name is different again but too hard for Aussies to pronounce)come over and he had heard how we got drenched in Exmouth and he was there too and got stuck for hours before they could get out. He seemed like a good bloke and from then on we struck up a friendship with him and his partner Alexandra. All of us were drying out and waiting for the roads into Karijini Natinal Park to open up.
As Tom Price was built around mining we decided to go on a mine tour. This was great and gave us a real insight into the magnitude of mining operations. Each train leaving Tom Price carries 2.4 million dollars worth of iron ore but I can't remember how many go a day. We spoke to a guy one night who didn't work for a mine but his company did contract mining work. We was flown in from Perth, spent 2 weeks on and one week off. No weekend work or night shift and $145,000 a year thanks very much! He wasn't even allowed to work quickly because the boss told them off if they did this and the return for the company was zero accidents and minimal sickies. Nice approach, are all bosses in Australia reading this?
Weather looking good ,Karijini he we come…
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