Newman to Coral Bay

We overnighted  at a free camp just south of Newman and arrived at the visitors centre at 9am, in time to do a tour of the BHP  Iron Ore mine, almost in the heart of town.  What a sight!! 5.5km long and 2km wide - this is the largest open-cut iron ore mine in the world.  They move literally millions of tons of earth per year at this site.  The ore quality is so pure and rich that they can mix some lower grade ore with it and still meet export quality.  The trains running from the crushing site here to Port Headland harbour are over 3.5km long and have six locomotives (spaced along the carriages) to pull/push it.  It takes 8hrs for the train to travel 426km. The trucks shifting the ore and overburden around the mine site carry 200tonnes and when fully loaded are heavier than a 747jet at takeoff. Note the photo of Des standing in front of one.  Not a lot more at Newman, so we headed west toward Karajini National Park.  The country this side of Newman is remarkably different - lots of mountain ranges and lots of scenery.  We stopped about 100km west in the hills at Mt Robinson, with 8 other vans and 3 motorbikes.  Such a beautiful spot with a fabulous view from the van window.  Shame landscape photos don’t ever do a place justice. We arrived at Karajini National Park mid morning and spent the day setting up camp as we were staying 5 days here.  We were surprised the road was bitumen all the way to the campground, but then thousands of people come here yearly.  Next day we travelled a shocking corrugated road 60k to view many of the gorges in the park.  Our second day we trekked the gorges closer to the campground.  They are more spectacular and have lots of waterholes in which you can swim.  Some never see sunshine so they are freezing, but a couple of others were very inviting and lots of people swam.  Too cold for anything other than my feet.  The red dirt here is shocking.  It gets into everything and is hard to get off your skin.  Weather is beautiful with nights dropping to 6deg and days reaching 30deg. After leaving Karajini NP we headed to Tom Price - another mining town.  Rio Tinto runs the mines here and the iron ore deposits are huge and very pure.  We did a bus tour of the mine and were surprised at how much better it was than the Newman tour.  We were taken very close to working areas and viewed the pit (well one of them) up close.  We did a 4x4 drive up the local mountain (Mt. Nameless, 1600mtrs above sea level).  The views were spectacular, but the trip was pretty scary for one of us.  Tom Price is the highest town in WA, 700mts above sea level.  The Pilbara region is really spectacular - very rugged and so different from any other country we’ve seen anywhere.  The mountains are soooooooooo different and we have seen it at it’s very best.  The plant life, including the Spinifex, is so lush and green that it’s hard to imagine what it must be like at the end of summer.  Temperatures out here can reach above 48deg on a summer’s day, so the plants would scorch.  The wildflowers are starting to come out in all their glory, but not as good yet as we saw when we travelled down the Darling river last year.  We reached Exmouth in a few days and it was amazing to see the ocean again.  Exmouth is almost as isolated at Tom Price,  we were very surprised.  The country going into Exmouth is horrible - what you would expect the Nullarbor to be like - all Spinifex, hardly any trees and lots of termite mounds. We decided to stay in a caravan park near the national park because getting a campsite in the NP is such a problem.  We did a small boat trip up one of the gorges and that was the highlight of our stay there.  Not a place we would go back to, or recommend to anyone else either. About 25km south we dropped the van and took a trip up the nearby range.  Another scary trip for one of us.  Not 4x4, but near enough.  The gorges up there were also spectacular.  At one point the track was one car width with about 300mtrs drop each side.  We are now at Coral Bay - a very lovely spot.  Quite small, but gets hundreds of tourists.  The coral reef is very close here and snorkelling and glass bottom boats are very popular.  At 3.30pm they feed fish in the bay.  It is a  marine sanctuary so they give the public handfuls of fish pellets and you can throw them to the fish.  There’s dozens of fish come in each day for this, some beautiful reef fish as well as larger ones.  We almost walked on a baby stingray in the shallows after leaving the feeding area.  This is a fabulous place for holidaying with children as the water is shallow enough for them to have so much fun, and yet it is as clear as crystal.  The colour of the ocean is just spectacular.  We will move on to Carnarvon tomorrow.  Hope you enjoy this blog. 

Des near the wheel of a 200tonne dump truck at Newman

BHP open-cut mine at Newman

aerial photo of Newman open-cut mine

our campsite at Mt Robinson north of Newman

Knox Gorge,Karijini Nat Pk.

Joffre Falls, Karijini Nat Pk.  Can you find the people near the top of the falls?

Circular Pool, Karijini Nat Pk.

Fortesque Falls, Karijini Nat Pk, from the bottom of the gorge.  This is a terrific swimming hole.

Fortescue Falls from the top of the gorge.

Part of Rio Tinto open cut operations at Tom Price taken from the top of Mt.Nameless

Tom Price township from the top of Mt. Nameless

Mt. Nameless -Tom Price - our 4x4 adventure

200tonne dump truck at the mine face Tom Price.

One of the main pits at Tom Price mine.  Can you see the Toyota 4x4 at the bottom

The main crushing plant for fine and coarse ore at Rio Tinto mine,Tom Price

Bucket loader used to load coarse ore from stockpile to conveyor belt.

wildflowers in Cape Range Nat Pk, Exmouth

Our boat trip up Yardie Creek Gorge, Cape Range N.P.

Potshot gorge south of Exmouth.  Yes, that's the ocean at the top of the photo

glassbottom boats near the reef at Coral Bay

Feeding the fish in Coral Bay

No gold in the goldfields

Before we hooked up to leave Niagara Dam we took a drive 13km up the road to a “ghost town” called Kookynie. Only the pub and a few old houses there, but there was some marvellous ruins of what once was the town. It was well worth the drive. Headed off north again to Leonora. This is a much larger town and has some facilities here. A large open-cut mine just outside town employs lots of people and the Shire centre is also here. We took a drive out to the mine, travelling through the old abandoned town of Gwalia. What an incredible place. Lots of old miner’s huts still standing and restored slightly by locals. It really is a step back in time when you walk through the front door and view things as they would have been in the early 1900’s. The magnificent old pub there was built in 1903 and was built by the State Govt of the day. It’s such a shame to see it just standing there unused and waiting to fall to pieces. Gwalia is the town where Herbert Hoover (who became the 31^st President of USA) once managed the mine in 1898. It rained the whole of the next day, so we spent the time indoors, cleaning up and catching up with people. The following day we were on the move again to Laverton, 125k NW. We planned to go up the old road, but the rains closed the road, so off on the bitumen we went. Half way to Laverton there is a HUGE nickel mining operation. We were hoping to go in for a look, but the signage was missing so we decided to bypass it and check things out in Laverton to see if we can go in on the way back to Leonora. We also detoured 10k to visit the old Poseidon Nickel site which operated 1970 to 1994. When this mine first floated on the stock exchange, prices were 80c per share. Five months later, the share price was $280 per share. There isn’t much remaining of this incredible mining site and we discovered in Laverton that another Co. is planning to re-open it and start mining again. First they have to extract all the water from the original mine. It will be interesting to see what happens in a few years. We arrived in Laverton and after setting up camp, took in some of the history of the town. There isn’t much opportunity for prospecting close to town so next day we headed back to Leonora. The country is looking wonderful because of recent rains and rains last summer. After an overnight in Leonora we headed north again to Leinster and then west to Sandstone. Sandstone is a very tiny town but quite interesting. From Sandstone we headed north again, this time 200k of dirt road to Meekatharra. The wildflowers are coming out now and all the way from Leonora we have seen many varieties. This is also the country for wedge tail eagles. We saw many feeding from road kill and were able to get quite close before they flew away. Such a magnificent bird. The mining that has taken place all the way up here is amazing. So many huge open-cut pits from the early 1900’s dotting the landscape. Lots of them have been reopened and new diggings are taking place with gold being found again. Not a lot of prosperity in Meekatharra. Many small shops closed and boarded up. Spent a couple of nights here then moved north again toward Newman. The country is mostly flat as a tack. Some small mining happening in this area. The wildflowers are less in numbers but still beautiful and we still haven’t seen a Sturt Desert Pea.

Ruins of Cosmopolitan Hotel, Kookynie built 1901.  Once would have been a very gracious building.

 

Old guesthouse in Gwalia (now a ghost town near Leonora). People have restored many old buildings there and furnished them with period furniture etc.

The bathroom in the guesthouse, above. Note the pressed tin walls and old heater system.  How about the modern looking tub?

This is a part of the laundry showing how ironing was achieved in the early days.

The dining room in the guesthouse, with a period setting.

This was the barber's room.  Cut-throat razors and clippers on the bench.

Old miner's hut at Gwalia.  Earth floor in most of it and old furniture showing how people lived in 1901.

The lovely State Hotel in Gwalia.  Built by the Government of the day in 1901 and today stands unused.  An incredible waste of resources and a beautiful period building.  It will eventually fall down.

The Poseidon mining site near Laverton.  This whole area was once the mine site but has been revegitated and only a few structures remain.  When we were there we were told that another company has started pumping water from the old site and plan to reopen it sometime.  Plenty more nickle apparently.

This photo shows what the Poseidon site looked like in full operation in 1994.

The old Coach House in Laverton used as a hotel and boarding house in the early goldrush days around 1900.

Had to let you see what the country was like between Meekatharra and Newman.  Flat, red and dry.