1998
Lionel the Landcruiser
and Tap-Tap go Walkabout

Day 25
Nullagine - Karijini National Park

Hiya All from Karajini National Park, better known as the Hamersley Range!

We've had a fun day today with not much driving but a good bit of touristy stuff. We had a tour around the world's largest open cut iron ore mine and a good browse in the shops in Newman as well as some photos of me with a very large dump truck - I tell you it was so big even I was impressed. I wouldn't have argued with him let me tell you.

Then we've come into the national park and had a very quick walk down to Fortescue falls before dinner and settling down for the night. We are hoping that Rob has finally fixed the leak in the airbed 'cos the ground here is rock or spinifex and we are not repeat not pitching the tent on spinifex! Rob has had a number of goes at this: First of all it was a slow leak after the major repair; then it began to leak faster so it got re-glued; then a new patch was put on the smaller hole; then we found where the air was leaking around the side of the large patch - but Rob managed to put a new patch in the wrong place so now we are hoping that it has finally been plugged. Last night was particularly uncomfortable as we were on the floor within an hour or two after blowing it up!

So, what was today really like. We got up early and were trying to be quiet so as not to wake the (very) nearby campers (there wasn't a lot of space left for tents at the campsite last night) when a flock of corellas started squawking like nothing you've heard and flying overhead like in films by Hitchcock! After that we figured everyone would be awake and sure enough heads began to appear out of tents and caravans. I guess this happens every morning 'cos no-one seemed too upset, but I don't think I would take very kindly to it on a regular basis. We shot off, and then about 5 minutes later came back to give them our toilet key and shot off again. A nice place really, but definitely not a tourist place - much more of a working type site with people living there semi-permanently it seemed.

Newman from Radio Hill Lookout.

So, the gravel to Newman was the same as yesterday, with a bit of care in the dips for pools of water you could pretty much treat it as normal road - so we did. Getting out of Nullagine we did cross the Nullagine river and it was flowing - only about 2 cm over the concrete slabs, but flowing it was so it counts as a water crossing. Well, it does in Hild's book - especially as she crossed it three times with us having to go back to return the key! Anyway, we made good time and got into Newman before 10 and straight into the tourist office to find out about Karajini.

Only Newman is pretty much a BHP town built by them for the workers at the Mt Whaleback mine (which is now Hole Whaleback and which will end up as Lake Whaleback when they have finished shipping the iron ore out and let it fill up with seepage) so the tourist office has a very large dump truck outside (about 200 tons capacity - i.e. it can carry 200 tons of ore in one go!) and is full of info about the mine. So we asked about tours and there was one going at one that day and we thought, hey we've come this far why not have a look. Unfortunately Hild then started looking around the shop and found lots of interesting things they had done with iron ore so out came the VISA card. To be fair, some of it was pressies for her boss, but the matching set of necklace, earrings and bracelet was pure indulgence on her part. I have to admit though, iron ore can look pretty snazzy when it is polished up. Get her to show the stuff sometime. And the lumps of iron ore as bookends makes a good gift for Hild's boss 'cos the have just finished working together on a paper about mining and taxation in which iron ore features a lot so it was sort of apt.

Lionel and his midwife!

Anyway, when Rob finally dragged her out I wanted my photo taken with the big dump truck - and just like with the road train in Kununurra I started a trend 'cos later on we saw other people doing the same thing! Then we went shopping in Newman and what a lovely town it is. This is a really nice place - just goes to show what you can do if there is the money to do it even out here in a pretty tough environment. This place looks just like a Perth suburb, with sports fields, swimming pools, shopping arcade - all the trimmings. When you think that it probably didn't exist 30 years ago and in summer this place averages 40 degrees it is quite impressive. Of course, it is all built - quite literally - on iron ore; even the railway only goes to one place - Port Hedland - where the only thing it carries - iron ore - gets put onto ships directly. It is still a nice town though, so we had a shop and then bought some yummy sandwiches to have for lunch. Which we ate on the Radio Hill Lookout which overlooks the hole town - including the golf-course!

Mt (hole) Whaleback. Maybe it will be Lake Whaleback soon?

Hild picking iron ore at Mt Whaleback.

Then we took the mine tour. A coach picked Hild and Rob up (I wasn't allowed to go - shame really I'd have fitted right in and I could have chatted with all the other 'Cruisers working there) and they got their safety glasses and hard hat and were whisked off through the gates into the mine site. Most of the tour the guide was spouting figures like how big the mine is and how many tons of this and how many kilometres of that, but the most interesting bits were the workshops where they were working on these big dumpsters or ore trucks they call them. These things use 125l of fuel per hour and their tyres cost $25,000 each! The big shovels which load the ore onto the trucks are electric and use 11,000 volt supply and their tyres are $35,000 each! This is fabulous stuff. If they would only let me in I could have spent days in there. I even tried using the 'getting back to my roots' excuse: I was made in Japan and my steel almost certainly came from Australian iron ore so as far as I am concerned - this s home. But no good. Next time I'll just get an orange flashing light and stick a red flag to my CB antenna and they'll never tell me apart from the others!

So, I could go on for hours about the mine and the various things, but I guess you can get all that from the guide books. I just wonder what the people of Newman will do in 50 years time when the ore runs out? Will they scream and shout about their way of life being destroyed and what will BHP do for them now? Maybe I'm just a cynic, but I don't think water-skiing on Lake Whaleback will support a town the size of Newman for long.

BHP - Crushing ore and shipping it off to Port Hedland.

View over Fortescue Falls, Karajini National Park.

Well, the tour meant that it was 2.40 before we left Newman so we only got to Karajini at 5'ish and the sun was going down. We went for Fortescue camping area 'cos it is the nearest and has a few shorter walks, and here we encountered the realm of time estimates again. There were a number of short walks listed as 1 km return, 1 hour - now how do you interpret that? Are we talking 1 km each way or 1 km there and back? And is 1 hour how ling it will take because it is a hellishly difficult climb or because they are assuming you are a cripple or that you will be so overawed by the scenery you will swoon and take 40 minutes to recover? Well, we tried one that went down to Fortescue Falls and got there and back in 15 minutes. Admittedly, it was a long way down (and then back up again) but there were pretty simple steps all the way and with Hild going down at a run - and then Rob doing the same back up (well almost 'cos he was being macho and doing the 'I've got big strong legs bit") I guess we were quicker than most, but even so an hour for that is a bit much. In fact it was so simple that we contemplated another walk - this one described as being a walk compared to the last one being a track so even easier, but then we decided we should really set up camp and cook while it was light so as not attract too many insects to the light.

Fortescue Falls - Finally some water!

And that's what we did. Set up camp, cooked, ate and snuggled up in bed. It has begun to get cold at night again so the wimps are back to using the sleeping bags to sleep in rather than on (another reason to get the air bed working properly again). I am left out in the cold as usual, but I can take it 'cos I'm tough. It is nice to be out of the heat though. There were times when during the day it was pretty hot - do you know, with all the gadgets they have bought, they don't have a thermometer! Now what better way to catalogue the trip than by temperature, there's something Hild can't do stats about!

OK then, time for bed - more tomorrow.

Lionel