Thurs 26 Sept 2013 – Karijini National Park – the lost Tea Cup!

We started the day with a swim and leisurely breakfast, then we headed off towards Karajini.

Oh no! I suddenly realized I’d left my cup of tea on a post back at the camping ground. That means I’ve lost my only china cup as well as my Lapsang Soushong – too far to go back though.

There are 2 roads there, one is a private road owned by Rio Tinto and we got a permit for this, so thought we'd try it. However, it was so corrugated that we soon turned round and used the alternative road which was much better. It was pretty boring though, except for a good view of mountains ahead.

On the West side of Karajini there's a gorge called Hammersley. It was amazing, with horizontal layers of different colours, warped and folded, rather like a giant clam shell. We climbed down many steps and over rocks and swam in a lovely clear, cold pool.

It was another 100kms before we got to the Eastern side of the Park and, on the way, we were amazed to see huge irrigation sprinklers going and a crop growing - we haven't seen any arable land since the Southern Flinders Ranges in SA and all around here is a desert of red dust.

A bit further along there was a huge stack of a neatly bailed crop that looked like hay, so we decided that must be what was growing here.

Near the entrance to the Park was Mt Bruce and from there we could look down on the Marandoo mine site, which was part of the National Park until the early 1990s.The WA Government decided to hand it over to Hammersley Mining as the WA economy rests almost entirely on mining and they feared that the nearby Tom Price iron ore was coming to an end.

As we drove here, we saw the trains full of ore going to the ports at Karrutha and Dampier The trains are 2 Kms long and 7 go from the mine every day. They say they can do this for another 17 years before it runs out.

After we set up camp, we met a lady who reminded us of Mrs Duffy. She's just come from Exmouth, where we're going next so she was able to give us lots of information and tips. Rodger's very excited that he'll soon get to surf.