May 2014 - Hamersley Ranges

From Nanutarra we left the North West Coast Highway and headed inland again through the Hamersley Ranges to Tom Price and the gorges of the Karijini National Park.  The rocky mountains and the red sandy plains make this a very picturesque landscape.  The rain out here in the past 6 weeks has brought on the wild flowers and the wattles are already starting to shoot.  There is grass everywhere and of course with good feed comes the breeding season for the roos and other wildlife.  There are 2 mining towns out here where Rio Tinto mine iron ore, and the first one that we came to was Paraburdoo.

Mining towns have come a long way over the years. Now they have all the facilities as well as nice green lawns and gardens which I am sure would make the place a lot more livable during those hot summer months when the temperatures often reach the 50 degree mark.

With the rain over the past weeks, red mud must have been everywhere and we laughed at the colour of the normally white corellas. Mining towns have very floating populations and the population can double during maintenance shut downs at the mines.  Accommodation can therefore become an issue so there is a lot of temporary accommodation units to handle the overflow.

Rio Tinto have just completed a new temporary accommodation site which also doubles as the local caravan park.  They have 20 or so 4 bedroom motel style huts mounted on semi trailers so they can be shifted from site to site as required.  The trailers are set up to carry potable water as well as empty tanks for grey water, hot water services, air conditioners, flat screen TV and even a pull out awning along the full length walkway.

A further 80 kilometres north east is Tom Price with another huge open cut iron ore mine.  They run a mine tour for visitors so we learnt a lot about Tom Price and the mining operation.  Iron ore was discovered on Mount Tom Price in October 1962 when Lang Hancock brought an American geologist out here for a look around. The geologists name was, you guessed it, Thomas Price who died of a heart attack 4 hours after the West Australian government announced that a mining lease had been granted for Mt Tom Price.(He was over 70 and had been ill for 12 months before the lease was granted).

From the moment of the announcement it was all go, and within 18 months the mining towns of Tom Price and Paraburdoo were built, along with establishing the mine, building the port town of Dampier and a rail link between the towns and port. It was originally thought that the ore would run out in 50 years, so everything was built around that time frame, however it has since been established that with modern technology, there is at least another 50 years worth of ore here.  Previous to 1982 Rio Tinto owned the town and only people connected with the mining operation could live here, but in 1982 they sold the town to the newly formed shire for the princely sum of $1, and the town then grew from 250 houses to 1,600 as it is today.  The town boasts an average population of 5,000 with 900 school age children attending either of the 2 primary schools or the secondary school.

Tom Price is the highest town in Western Australia with an altitude of 747 metres, and the highest point around there is Mt Nameless which is just over 1,100 metres high. The mine have their communications towers up there and there is a 4WD track to the top, where the view is 360 degrees for as far as the eye can see.

Rio Tinto also operate another 2 mines in the area from the towns of Wickham and Panawanica, and also have a 50% share in the Hope Downs project with Gina Reinhart.  The mine lease at Tom Price which covers an area 13 kilometres by 8 kilometres, produced 5 million tonnes of iron ore in 1966 and this has built up to 290 million tonnes in 2013 from all 4 mines.

Do the sums, iron ore was valued at $140 per tonne last year so that’s $40,600,000,000.  All this iron ore is blasted out of the mountain, sometimes 4 times a day, and then picked up by face shovels that weigh 300 tonnes and can pick up 45 to 50 tonnes of ore at a time in their 17 cubic metre bucket.

This machine clocked up 72,555 hours of work between 1994 and when it was decommissioned in 2010.  Average fuel consumption during this time was 8,000 litres per every 24 hours it worked. Any wonder why this mine alone burns 2 million litres of diesel every week.

The ore is loaded into Komatsu diesel/electric dump trucks that have a 240 tonne carrying capacity and a total gross weight when loaded of 400 tonne.  These trucks are powered by a 2,500 horse power diesel motor, and burn 20 litres of fuel every kilometre when under full power.  The mine operates 36 of these large trucks which cost $4.5 million each.

There is also a big crushing plant at the mine that reduces the ore down to 6 mm in size ready for loading on the train to be sent to customers in China and India.  The trains are 2.5 kilometres long and consist of 3 General Electric locomotives each with a 4,500 horse power engine, 236 rail wagons each loaded with 116 tonnes of ore.

At current ore prices, the 27,376 tonnes of ore on each train is valued at about $3.5 million, and there is an average of 4 trains per day that leave Tom Price.  To shift all this ore, Rio Tinto have 170 locomotives and 10,000 ore wagons that operate over 1,600 kilometres of heavy duty standard gauge railway track.  The carriages are coupled together in such a way that they can be picked up and turned upside down when they get to Dampier for unloading.

Karijini National Park is only 90 kilometres east of Tom Price, and as it boasts an abundance of ancient gorges, a day trip around the park turned up some spectacular views.  The main road around the park between the visitors centre and the west entrance is a well formed gravel road, but the roads running off to the gorges are atrocious.  We persisted, and it was well worth the view.

Junction Pool is where Weano, Red, Joffre and Hancock gorges all meet. There are 2 lookouts within 50 metres here where we stood 100 metres above the junction pool.  The rocks in the bottom of these gorge have been worn smooth over many years by water carrying rock, gravel and debris, which sweeps through the gorge after rain.  The trees seen growing in the gorge are river red gums which grow up to 20 metres tall and northern paper barks which grow up to 15 metres tall.

The head of Joffre Gorge can be accessed along another 20 kilometres of rotten road, but again well worth the effort. From the lookout you can see the water falling down into a very cold pool of water about 120 metres below. Surprisingly enough, people climb down the cliff face to swim in the pool below. This is why the SES unit in Tom Price is the busiest unit in the Pilbra as they are often out here rescuing people that fall off cliffs and break bones.

Back on the main road again, the visitors centre has been built from raw sheets of rusty steel plate which fits very nicely into the surroundings. From the visitors centre to Dales Gorge the road is fully sealed which makes for a pleasant change. Fortescue Falls, which is where you can see one of the very few permanent waterfalls in the Park, is then easily accessed from the car park. This area has a camp ground where visitors can stay and spend days discovering all the gorges in Karijini National Park.

Our original plan was to head back to the coast at Karratha, but the gravel road was said to be too rough for the caravan, so we headed further east and met the Great Northern Highway just south of Auski Road House, about 610 kilometres north of our old home town of Meekatharra.

I couldn’t resist taking this photo of the Landcruiser towing a double road train. The Great Northern Highway passes the Roy Hill turn off where Gina Reinhart is building a new open cut iron ore mine after recently raising 10.4 billion dollars to get the project started.

There are literally hundreds of road trains with 4 trailers hauling iron ore from already existing mines about 150 kilometres east of Auski Road house on the Roy Hill road back into Port Hedland. These trucks work 2 shifts in 24 hours so there is a constant hum of trucks going through the southern part of Port Hedland to the port. Port Hedland seems like one of the busiest towns in the Pilbra with all the infrastructure work going on around the south side.

They are building new roads, rail and overpasses to cope with all the extra iron ore coming in from the new Roy Hill mine which is due to start shipping iron ore by the end of 2015.  The Roy Hill project will even have it’s own port which has already had $230 million dollars spent on dredging 5.6 million cubic metres of material to clear a channel for big iron ore ships.

The new port facility will receive, stockpile, screen and export 55 million tonnes a year and be capable of storing 5 million tonnes of ore awaiting shipment.  A 344 kilometre railway line is being built from the mine to the port which will handle 5 trains per day each consisting of 3 locomotives hauling 232 ore cars with a total payload of 32,062 tonnes.  The estimates of this new deposit is that it will take at least 20 years to mine all the ore at the forecast rate of 55 million tonnes per year.  All this construction work going on means that the caravan parks are full of workers, so after a night in the car park at the golf course listening to trucks and trains all night, we headed north towards Broome.

To break the 600 kilometre journey, we stopped off at the 80 mile beach caravan park, about half way between these 2 cities.  What a great find, and a lot more than we expected. Nice grassed, shady sites with the Indian Ocean only 100 metres away over the sand hill.

Once again,a lovely sunset over the ocean to finish off the day.  Fishing from the beach is top of the list in this caravan park.

There are many campers here who come each year and stay for 3 months and spend their waking hours fishing.  Most of them have 4 wheel motor bikes with fishing rods strapped to the front, an esky strapped to the back and they ride along the beach to their favourite fishing spot.

There must be heaps of fish here as even I caught a nice Blue Threadfin Salmon about 450 mm long.  A couple of fillets off him made for a very tasty lunch. Wednesday nights are hamburger nights, just bring along a plate and $6 to enjoy a freshly cooked hamburger with salad out on the lawn chatting with fellow travelers.

A lovely way to finish a busy day fishing.