Day 7 July 10th Pt Hedland

After leaving the National Park we headed to Pt Hedland, were we visited the Tourist Center again and booked another trip to see the tail end of what we had seen at the Whaleback Mine. BHP Iron Ore and the shipping out of the ore is fantastic, and to think we only keep about 5% of all this ore for home use.

We then followed the old 95 (now No 1) up to a station stay. On our way we passed a group of the Harmony runners that are running around Australia.. I take my hat off to them as they run with Road Trains bearing down on them. 

The Last picture is one of the runners and organisers who was from New Zealand, but her team included Russians, Americans and Croatian.

Day5/6 July 8/9th Karajini National Park

 Firstly, my apologies for the quality of this video but I just could not resist the photo's and had to reduce the size and quality to get them all on.

This aside, this is the Karajini National Park in all its glory, with Dales Gorge (the one from the top) and Weano Gorge from the bottom, again a sight that needs to be seen to be believed. It is getting difficult to get into camping areas now and on the two days we were here we were based in the overflow area. Did not matter to us and it was very central for us to get to the other gorge areas. Stephen actually got me to go up and down the gorges, much to my hips annoyance but well, thats life!

Day 4 July 7th Newman to Karajini National Park.

We arrived in Newman last night and managed to get to the Tourist Centre to book a tour for this morning. I have to say a big thank you to the Tourist Centers, they are always so helpful and pleasant.

We stayed in a okay caravan park in a very Mining Town environment.... shall we say interesting!

When we arrived at the tour in the morning it was only to find some people that were at Paynes Find Caravan Park disaster, were on the same tour... seems that following each other around is quite common, I suppose this means that I will have to behave myself!

The BHP tour of the Whaleback Mine was very well done and extremely interesting. The size of everything has to be seen to be believed. It certainly made you feel very small against it's size and might.

Day 3 July 6th Meekatharra to Newman

Oh the glory of the early morning in downtown Meekatharra. Neither Stephen or I can remember ever seeing so much rubbish leading into and out of a town... very disappointing. We got up to an early start with a walk through the main streets. They have a display of  mining equipment including the battery used for crushing the ore that is in the first picture. While on our walk, the tractors came past. These tractors are on a charity run and we had experienced them the day before. They stayed in the same caravan park with us and were on there way to Darwin. All made by Chamberlain they were collecting more as they went and were hoping for about 18 by the end.

We left Meekatharra on our way to Newman and passed the tractors again. The other item of relevance was that we found the Channel 18 very lacking in information or contact....however, the truckies (if you ignored the language) kept us amused.

Day 2 July 5th Paynes Find to Meekatharre

We woke to fog!! A rubbish dump and a fog!!! Set off as early as we could and caught ourselves between a group of caravaners that are going all the way to Darwin pulling their vans with tractors.. quite amusing. The chatter on the radio was good between them and the Truckies... The other picture is of an area that we stopped for coffee, between Mt Magnet and Cue. Stephen says the one of me should read North here we come!!!. The wild flowers are beginning to show up we is great... got into Meekatharra  early to do some shopping fill up with fuel and have a decent meal as we want to do 460 ks tomorrow through to Newman... then we will start to slow down and enjoy the roses!!!!! Oh yes  I have been allowed to drive but that was yesterday!!

Day 1 July 4th Kalamunda to Paynes Find

Well after a few days more than we were expecting (thanks to Stephen backing the car into a bollard at Joma & Pops) we are on our way. We did the photo shoot outside the house and then headed North. We stopped off at New Norcia... hence photos.. but we were trying to get out of town before the holiday rush started. not much to report yet as we are just driving.... Got to Paynes Find late in the afternoon so had very little choice as to where we could pull up... should have stayed by the road as the Caravan Park at Paynes Find on a scale of 1-10 is a -5!

New Car

Just thought I would post a few more pictures of the New Toby, yes the 200 series. It has a few extra's, being a winch compatible bull bar, roof rake, rod holder on one side and awning on the other.

The big bag on the front of Turtle is the bike rack and bag. The rack is dual purpose as we can take it off the van and put it on the back of Toby.

Still packing like mad and aiming to leave on the 1st July....this year!!!!!