Friday 11th May 2018
This morning we are heading out to Tom Price Mine on a tour. This was really interesting. A few facts:

• The mine was constructed in 1965
• The town was named after Thomas Moore Price who was the Vice President of the US based steel company Kaiser Steel. He was instrumental in convincing the WA Govt to listen to Rio Tinto and realise the abundance of iron ore in the State.
• Population (2011 census) 5460
• School Age children – 818
• Altitude – 747m above sea level and is the highest town in WA (giving it the nick name – Top Town in WA)
• Dump trucks cost $4.5m, carry 240t, 2500hp engine, fuel capacity 4542 litres, 26 large trucks 140t, 10 smaller trucks 100t
• Excavators cost $7m, 1944hp engine, fuel capacity 7450 litre, Hydraulic oil capacity 4000 litre, Bucket weight 28,500kg, Bucket capacity 21 cubic metres, Height at full reach 16.5m
• Trains are over 2.5km long, 4500hp each locomotive and 4 used to drive train, 120t ore per car, 28,000t per train load, 5 trains per day from Tom Price, pooled fleet consists of 45 x 236 cars, approx 200 locomotives and 10,500 ore cars

After our tour we headed in to Karijini National Park. Our home for the next couple of days. Karijini is the second largest National Park in WA. As we drove in to the park there was smoke, we kept driving as we had just watched a video at the Visitors Centre which was for the private mine road we were travelling on later in the week which said if there is a fire, just stop your car in a clearing, wind up your windows and close the vents and wait for the fire to pass. We also figured they would have had a road block if it was unsafe. The further we drove in we worked out that they were just doing routine back burning.

Our first stop and overnight stay is in Dales Gorge. We arrived here about 4pm and decided to tackle all the walks here. The estimated time to complete all the walks was 4 hours. We went down into the Gorge first to Fortescue Falls and Fern Pool where I had a lovely swim. Then we walked the base of the gorge to Circular Pool, then back up to the rim and back to camp. It only took about 2.5 hours including my swim and was only 6.6km. The views and gorges were beautiful especially with the fading light. We keep telling ourselves to settle in and take our time when we get to camp but the temptation to walk at sunset always seems to win over, which in turn makes everything else later in the evening.

We are loving the National Park camping as always. Most times they have a loop camping ground which means you only have one or two neighbours. One on each side, sometimes close but most times to so close, Here at Dales there are 5 loops. Unfortunately David mustn’t have smiled the right way when we checked in with the volunteer camp host as we got put in with the generators. Lucky they are only allowed to run between 8am and 8pm. It is also quite amazing, Telstra has been the best provided for the entire holiday but I only have Emergency calls in Karijini and David’s Optus is working.