Continuing on from Karijini NP was an adventure in it's self, Tom Price is a very clean and tidy little town, very friendly and helpful people.
We went to the Info centre to get a road pass to use the RioTinto Rail service road in lieu of the "main Road", cost - donation to the FRDS. No worries there so off we went, the service road runs beside the Rail line and this gave us plenty of opportunities to photograph the ore trains, all 1.5 klm of them, Kathy tried to video one with her phone and it timed out before the train passed !
Once we reached the end of the permit road we started the 'main road', the road to hell more like, it has been a long time since I have traversed a road as corrugated as this one, huge deep corrugations for kilometres, 15 to 20 k's at best. We eventually arrived at Millstream NP and decided that will do us for one day, pulled into a camp site and thought we had a dead kangaroo in it until we got close, her head shot up and she gave us the dirtiest of looks imaginable before hopping away. Not the best managed Park we have been in as there were quite a few blue burr (rally poly) plants growing in the prepared camp sites, prickly little buggers so it was shovel time before setting up.
Generators permitted until 8pm in the park but the big one for the Rangers house can run 24-7 it seems.
The road from hell lasted another 50 km before the black stuff started and then it was a cruise run to Dampier, quite a few Sturts Desert Pea flowers along the road so it was very pleasant. Beside the entry into Dampier is a small park with the Red Dog memorial and the trees story of his life, and aa heap of Pea flowers in the Traffic Island. Drove up to Karratha for the night and found the Info Centre was closed as end of Tourist season, short hours when available is not a good look, the van park is not much better being beside the industrial area so it was an early wake up with all the reversing beepers etc.
The landscape changes with every turn, masses of wild flowers, small bird life and magnificent panoramas. They had about 20mm of rain a few weeks earlier and that triggered the flower flush and the green tinge to everything.
We are heading for Exmouth and the whale watching etc.
Stay tuned
the iron ore dust is everywhere !
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