Last night we had booked a mine tour of the Tom Price mine. We had plenty of time to get into Tom Price as we had to be there at 9:30AM for 10, to catch our tour bus from the visitor information centre. We arrived with plenty of time to spare and paid our money ($30ea) then waited around for the bus to turn up while getting some more info and brochures for the next part of the trip. We have discovered that we are not getting many brochures now as we have them all and don’t see any new ones now.

Baz our bus driver and tour guide was a bit of a character. He stressed the rules for the tour that it was a $500 fine if the police pulled us up on the road and somebody was not wearing a seat belt plus a personnel fine for him. Seat belts on WA busses are mandatory now. He also explained that when we enter the mine site we are on a Rio Tinto work site and their rules apply, $2,000 on the spot fine for you and $5,000 for him if the bus is stopped and inspected on site and no seat belt. Rio has the safest mine work sites in the world and they have a zero tolerance to anything that may dent that record. Many a cowboy has taken the next plane home apparently.

Our tour bus at the look out

Baz in yellow and the rest of us looking into the pit

The tour was great. Baz was a funny guy and he explained everything and we toured most of the site and spent quite a while on the lookout above the main pit. Apparently they are undergoing a huge expansion at the moment as when they originally developed the mine they drilled to find the ore body then dug a hole there to get it out. Modern geophysics came along and they discovered they were 500M out and the best ore was under the hill at the end of the pit. They are removing millions of tonnes of spoil to expand the mine size to get to it now. Think of it as a ‘V’ and the sides can only get to a certain angle so to go out or down you have to make the ‘V’ wider.

The main pit, the best ore is under the hill on the right

Human in this one for scale

Very old retired 125T unit.

Train loading hopper

There was all manner of ‘big stuff’ rolling past, in workshops or in the distance. Huge crusher systems, train loading setups and all manner of mine ‘stuff’. Baz threw so many staggering figures at us during the tour it was impossible to remember any of them. The tour was good value we thought and lasted for about 1:40. After the tour we drove up to the very boring Tom Price Lookout and then the more exciting 4WD track to the top of mount Nameless, still with only one shockie on the truck. We looked over the mine and took a few pictures from high up. Mt Nameless is the highest mountain in WA you can drive to the top of.

Full of spoil this one

Accommodation units from Mt Nameless

Part of the mine from Mt Nameless

Workshops and fuel dump from Mt Nameless

We then went to a place everybody talks about in Tom Price, King Lake reserve. It was very underwelming but we stopped and had lunch on the grassed area on some picnic tables. It was very pleasant to be on grass and not RED DUST! We drove back to Karijini with the intention to go to one of the gorges on the way back but after we spent nearly and hour in the visitors centre we headed back to camp as it was to late. We took the camper off the truck yesterday so I had a chance to look at the fridge. I was keen to diagnose exactly what was the problem so carefully removed everything to get access to the burner and it had as expected a very weak flame.

I removed the jet very carefully and remembered an old trick to use a pair of binoculars the reverse way around to make a simple microscope. The jet was blocked with a piece of black material that I could clearly see with my portable microscope. I felt much better knowing exactly what the problem is now. I put a tissue over the gas outlet without the jet installed and let the gas free flow for a while but no more foreign material came out. I guess I will have to replace all the piping, regulator and service the whole system when we get back to eliminate it all together. So the fridge is back up and running for now at least.

Awesome chorizo, sweet potato and pasta dish Sharon whipped up for tea. More gorges tomorrow to finish off Karijini and then onwards to Exmounth to find some whale sharks and turtles if they are still around?

You may be wondering about the title of tonights blog, Baz told us on the tour an experienced train driver can earn $240,000 a year driving trains. Baz also told us that all the trains will be driverless and controlled from Perth in the not to distant future. Perhaps they have priced themselves out of the market? Truck drivers were earning $150,000 so perhaps they had better watch out as well?