Red and Rusty get red and dusty

Leaving the coast behind, today we entered the Pilbara, en route to Karijini National Park which seemed to be on everyone’s “must see in WA” list.

To break up the journey from Exmouth we had overnighted in a free camp and then along the way caught up with a familiar character – the famous Red Dog of the Pilbara.

His statue sits in Paraburdoo where he was apparently born! Aussie readers will know him well thanks to the wonderful movie of the same name and non Australians should definitely google him and watch the film if they can access it. 😉

Red Dog

Next we had a one night stop in Tom Price, an iron ore mining town which is today under the control of mining giant Rio Tinto and has the distinction of being WA’s highest town.

Tom Price (both the town, the mine and the mountain) was named after Thomas Moore Price, the vice-president of the giant United States steel company Kaiser Steel. Price was one of the main initiators and supporters of the opening up of the Pilbara region to iron ore mining and you can’t forget that is where you are.

We stocked up on groceries and other necessities as we were free camping in Karijini for three nights afterward with no facilities at all apart from (allegedly very clean and well maintained) drop loos!

We checked in to our campsite just after lunch leaving the afternoon free to get started which was fortunate as our first target was Hamersley Gorge in the north of the park. One hundred and ten kilometres later, half of them on bone jarring corrugated red dust roads, (thank god we ignored the visitor info lady’s suggestion to go there en route with the motorhomes) we arrived with our fillings intact.

The afternoon sun was illuminating the gorge wall as we reached the lookout and it was all worth it.

We could see down in the base of the gorge several families swimming in the rockpools and Russell and decided to venture down.

The dramatic beauty of this gorge has yet to be beaten thus far in our travels in my opinion.

Swirls of ochre hued rocks encase pristine pools which were getting well utilised on this hot afternoon, I wished I could join them but alas hadn’t come prepared for swimming 😒

I climbed up to the insta famous “Spa pool” and even without my drone (not allowed) and a size eight bikini clad model, it was still pretty spectacular.

Reluctantly putting my camera away I hiked back up to where the others were waiting, all of us aware that we had quite a long drive home and the sun was sinking quickly.

Deciding not to tackle the same road home we headed north through the gorge emerging eventually on to the road which would take us through the former town of Wittenoom. Wittenoom was once the centre of a thriving asbestos mining operation but the mine was shut down in 1966 due to its unprofitability, and growing health concerns about the longterm effects of asbestos. The declared contaminated site comprises 50,000 hectares (120,000 acres), making it the “largest contaminated site in the southern hemisphere”. It was also the inspiration behind Midnight Oil’s “Blue Sky Mine” for all of you rock stars.

In the failing light we didn’t see anything left but belatedly noticed this after we had stopped for a couple of sunset shots and to let these bad boys pass… 🤞

Note John’s car on the far left of the first photo to get an idea of scale, he’s not that far past them!

It was fully dark by the time we reached Auski Roadhouse and fueled up, surrounded by massive road trains doing the same, and then we had another eighty odd kilometres to go, thankfully on bitumen this time.

An exhausting but awesome first day in Karijini, can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

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