18th- 19th
August
Left Tom Price this morning and quickly got onto the private
Tom Price Railway Road (the one we needed the permit for) which runs alongside
the longest privately owned railway in the world – all for the mines. The road
was dirt but well graded and it was fascinating to drive beside so many mining
trains – each kilometres long and most fully loaded with iron ore. Commonly the
trains have over 200 cars each of which carries 100 tonnes of ore. The analogy
we were told is that one of these trains carries enough iron ore to construct
about 15,000 family cars. The mine works in the area are so incredibly vast and
dominate much of the landscape.
Along the way we took a detour to drive up Mount Sheila.
Mount Sheila was originally a Telecom Repeater Station. When I mentioned in a
text to my good friend Jill where we currently were in our journey, she looked
up the area and mentioned to me that we really must go to Mount Sheila. Pretty
funny to have Mount Bruce and Mount Sheila within kilometres of each other.
Someone must have been having a laugh – only in Australia! It was a narrow,
rocky 4WD track to the top with more phenomenal views over the Hamersley Ranges.
Our destination today was Millstream Chichester National
Park (240,000ha). Quite a different park to Karijini but nonetheless very
interesting. Lots of rolling spinifex hills, sheer escarpments and wetlands
with loads of bird life. The Millstream precinct is a priority one water
catchment area and the water feeding the area comes from a natural underground
reserve (aquifer) which is feed by the Fortescue River. The aquifer has an
estimated area of 2000km square and contains 1700 million cubic metres of
water. The aquifer supplies water to industry and for domestic use to many local
coastal areas.
On entering the park we set up camp at the Stargazers
Campground and just hung out there into the evening. Very hot day but pretty
chilly night so into bed early.
We planned to stay at this campsite for two nights while we
explored the park. In the morning, we headed to the old Millstream Homestead
and did a walk through the surrounding wetlands – really pretty with some
interpretive signs telling about the wetlands, the Yindjibarndi people, the
early settlers and the natural environment. From there we drove the Snappy Gum
Drive loop which took in a lot of the area with some sweeping vistas across the
undulating hills dotted with spinifex and fabulous gum trees.
From there we did a short cliff top walk with a number of
vantage points to view the Fortescue River and the Hamersley Ranges and then
drove to Deep Reach which is a part of the river allocated to swimming. It was
another hot day so we were keen for a swim but the water was murky and the
mozzies were awful so we aborted that idea and headed back to the car. We then
realised we had done all there was to do in that part of the park and it wasn’t
even lunch time so we decided to go back and break camp and head to the
Chichester section of the park.
The drive from Millstream to Chichester was fabulous –
amazing scenery, wildflowers, red dirt and chocolate coloured ranges. The
Chichester Range is very rugged terrain made up of basalt and sandstone. Very
striking. Our first stop in this part of the park was Python Pool – a permanent
plunge pool at the base of a cliff. Pretty but unfortunately no swimming again
as the pool was an eerie shade of green because of algae growth. We started
along a rocky track to George River but the going was tough and we weren’t
convinced that the camp sites at the end of the track would yield anything
special so we turned around and headed out to the Roebourne Wittenoom Rd. That
was pretty much it for the National Park – a nice place to visit but if someone
was pressed for time, it wouldn’t be the end of the world to miss this one.
Python Pool
So….. onward to the coast. Spectacular drive through some
quintessential Pilbara landscape listening to our latest audio book – ‘Paper
Towns’. We popped out at Roebourne and decided to spend the night at Point
Samson – a small coastal fishing village. Had hoped to possibly catch up with
my good friend Ali’s sister who lives in Wickham but they were in Brisbane for
a family function so we checked into the caravan park and went across the road
to the tavern for happy hour and the biggest seafood platter ever! We met a
couple there who are travelling by boat. The man had spent four years building
a kit catamaran and now they are sailing around Australia. Quite the journey.
This piqued Stephen’s interest and he has all sorts of ideas now for a boat
building project – as you do!!
Sunset at Point Samson
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