Bradby Trip Days 18 to 21 6 to 9 July 2009 Newman to Karijini NP to Exmouth

Friday, Jul 10, 2009 at 07:18

Cycling Nomads

06 July 2009 Day 18 – We were up bright and early ready to pack up and get the trailer and car to Newman Fleet Services for the repairs and hopefully on our way after lunch. We dropped the rig off and jumped on the bus for the mine tour.

The Mount Whaleback mine is the largest single open-cut Iron Ore mine in the world and is currently 5.5 km long and almost 2 km wide. Mount Whaleback was originally 805 metres above sea level and currently, at its highest point, is just over 600 metres.
The mine is currently down at a depth of 420 metres and at bench 28, the water table was reached at bench 18. 80 million litres of water is pumped out of the pit each week and used for various applications of the mine’s operation.



The iron ore is railed to Port Headland with the average train measuring 2.4 km long, consisting of 4 locomotives, 208 ore cars and one driver. The trains take 90 minutes to load and when fully loaded weigh 30,000 tonnes. All in all an impressive tour of a huge open cut mine and well worth doing.

After arriving back we checked at Newman Fleet Services to see what the petrol issue was, bad luck unfortunately it was a hole in the sub tank and the options were to try and patch the tank or have it replaced. A replacement tank would have to be freighted from Perth and would take a day or so. We opted for a patch job and we’ll see how it goes, if worse comes to worse we’ll replace the tank in Karratha which has a Toyota dealership.

The mechanics asked if they could have the car for the rest of the day so we rang the Caravan Park and booked for an extra night – it was all a little frustrating but better it happened in Newman than out on the road. So it was back to the caravan park set up again, Linda took the opportunity to do another load of washing, we cooked up left over chicken curry and rice and went to bed about 9 00 pm looking forward to getting to Karijini National park early.

07 July 2009 Day 19 – We were up and having a coffee by 6 00 am and packed up by 7 00 am arriving 200 km later at Karijini check in and site allocation area by 9 30 am. To our surprise people we’d camped next to at Newman had pre-booked a site for us (for the night before) thinking we’d arrive late on 06/07/09 after getting the car fixed and mine tour. When we checked in there was a blackboard sign for “Michael from Brisbane, and son of Jack, to check message”. Both them and the ladies and the site office were relieved that we had turned up.



So after finding our excellent camp site that was shady, we trekked into Dales Gorge, visiting and swimming at Circular Pool and Fern Pool where the water was absolutely freezing but at the same time very refreshing and very popular – there were lots of people. While the gorges are not as imposing as King’s Canyon, the ruggedness and colours of the gorge face were (in my opinion) far superior and the vegetation much lusher. Four hours later we were back at camp.



We ran into Les, Suzie and their teenage children, Sam and Emily (the people who per-booked for us) and arranged to visit them at their camp site after dinner for a wine and a chat. The time passed quickly they were lovely people and we had a great time discussing family histories and travel adventures. We arrived back at the camper trailer around 9 00 pm , had a coffee and planned the next day before hitting the sack.

08 July 2009 Day 20 – After a sleep in and a big cooked breakfast of bacon, sausages, eggs and tomatoes washed down with coffee we headed off to the Park Information Centre for a look around before travelling the 40 km to Weano Recreation Area.

There are 2 gorges to walk to at this spot – Weano and Hancock gorges. We decided to do Hancock gorge first then have lunch at the car park followed by the walk to Weano gorge. The park has graded sections of track ranked from class 1 to class 6 with 1 being easy and 6 requiring abseiling skills and equipment. The Hancock gorge walk was graded from a 2 to a 5 so parts were very challenging and very spectacular, photos do not do it justice.

The track down included a ladder descent and walking and swimming through water to get to the end point Kermit’s Pool before the class 6 action started. Linda took a tumble down about 2 metres and into the water at one difficult stage suffering bruising to her behind, elbow and head. Luckily she was not badly hurt and was able to continue the walk albeit gingerly.



We made our way back up to the car park ate our sandwiches and Jack and I headed off to do the Weano Gorge walk without Linda who was stiffening up and had a headache from her fall.Weano Gorge has also challenging with class 3 and 5 sections. One section requires a handrail and rope climb into Handrail Pool and another chest deep wade to get to the next section, again it was spectacular and I found myself snapping pics constantly. Jack and I arrived back at the car 1.5 hours later.




On the way back to the camp site we stopped at the Information centre for a $2.00 hot shower before ambling back to camp around 4 00 pm – a busy and highly enjoyable day.

09 July 2009 Day 21 – We were up, fed and packed up by 8 00 am and on our way to Tom Price for a food top up, fuel and a few phone calls to see if we could book a site in Exmouth. Linda was able to secure a powered site at the Big 4 Cape Tourist Park following a cancellation just before we rang. We also booked 7 nights at Ningaloo Station where we can camp on the dunes above the beach. Jack is really excited about finally being able to wet a line.

It was a big driving day we covered 695 km mostly on the black top through some spectacular country. We took a dirt road short cut cutting off 75 km of the journey through Pilbera Range country, the colours and ruggedness of the hills is amazing.

We arrived at Exmouth at around 5 30 pm, set up, did the washing and heated up a stew for dinner looking forward to getting our feet wet in the Indian Ocean tomorrow. It has taken us 3 weeks to travel from Brisbane to Exmouth and we have done just over 6500 km across some amazing landscapes. The single highlight for me has been the gorges in Karijini National Park, after a lot of discussion Linda’s memorable experience was climbing Uluru and Jack just couldn’t decide.
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