14th September Tom Price

Spider Walk at Hancock gorge, Karijini

Traversing the gorge walls

Clearwater Pool Karijini

Fern Pool, Dales Gorge

Ha
nd Rail Pool, Karijini
Mandy and Dad at Gorge lookout

Climbing out of Jeffre Falls

Jeffre Falls with water

For the Grade 2's a traditional aboriginal house

Cool dudes in their safety glasses

Climbing on Rock Art ???

Boys and their toys

We have arrived a day early in Tom Price after a very diverse week since leaving Port Hedland. Dad arrived last Wednesday morning and we headed straight off towards Port Sampson. We stopped briefly at the information centre at Roeborne which is located in an old jail with very good records of the history of the area. The jail was pretty much set up to house Aboriginals and the history of how they treated them is pretty shocking. From there we visited the historic pearling town of Cossack where dad ended up staying the night in the converted police station. Another very interesting place that has been immaculately restored, it tells of the history of the pearlers including the Japanese that came out, how the aboriginals were forced to dive, the leper colonies and the history of the town and its people. We stayed the night at Port Sampson which wasn't overly exciting except for it's exceptional fish and chips. The next day we moved onto Karratha and Dampier right into the heart of the mining towns. We did a resource tour of the Salt Mines, the port loading bays for Iron Ore and the NW Shelf Gas plant which was also very interesting and gave us a good appreciation of the mining industry and how it works. Unbelievably nearby there is open air rock art, said to be the first Art in the world just sitting there. World Heritage listed but with no signs or protection but open to anyone to walk around, over and in and definitely the best rock art we have seen.
We camped the night at the Dampier Transient Camping Ground, overlooking the loading bays for Rio's Iron Ore and home of the Red Dog of which the film premiere is scheduled to take place next May in Dampier!
From Dampier we headed inland on the private Rio Tinto corrugated road and overnighted at Millstream park next to a lovely billabong where we had a cool swim in the morning. Dad joined us there and the rain set in. We spent the day driving on dirt roads, quickly turning to mud roads to Karijini. Dropped in at Hamersley Gorge spectacular even in the rain but too wet to walk down to. On the way out we met an overturned 4wd who had misjudged the slipperiness of the roads (we were off road all this time). Arrived late afternoon in the continuing rain to set up camp. Dad stayed in an Eco Tent, which really are too pricey for what they are. We all managed a bbq under our awning and woke up the next morning to sunshine and had a great 2 sunny days of exploring the gorges of Karijini which really is a big adventure playground. The previous days rain was actually fortunate as some of the waterfalls not usually filled at this time of year had water flowing. The highlights were the Jeffre Falls, (which Dad very impressively climbed to), Dales Gorge with the Fern pool and Clearwater pool, which was lovely to swim in and Hancock Gorge. The boys did an amazing job doing the spiderwalk down Hancock Gorge, legs and hands on opposite sides of the gorge, traversing the rock sides of the gorge and wading through the rivers. It was one of the highlights for them.
We were due to stay another day but as the forecast was rain we decided to move on to Tom Price where today we did a mine tour, a boys delight. Huge machinery everywhere, big piles of dirt and lots of steel. Would you believe we did it with another family from Red Hill.... Robin, Matt, Lucas (yes in Grade 1 with Luke) and Clare. The rain has set in for the day and we are in a Chalet ? in Tom Price which the boys are hugely excited about. Dad's just beaten Luke in chess 3 times in a row!

4 weeks until we are home. Time is going quickly but as Christopher says it feels like we have been away for 3 years. We say goodbye to dad tomorrow and head off to Exmouth , where apparantely another Grade 1 family the Jacobs are also due to be located.....