kathndes: 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.