louise at sign to Marble Bar WA 21.8.10 (it was 25c and sunny)
Cable Beach Broome WA - sunset camel ride 18.8.10
We are currently in a very tiny place called Tom Price W.A., a mining town named after the founder of the huge Rio Tinto mine here, we went around this morning and had a look at it. We were a bit dissapointed that we did not actually see where they were digging in the open cut area, but it was ok; a few days ago we were in Newman W.A. which is about 500km away from Tom Price, we were hoping to see the biggest open cut mine in the world (BHP own it) and can you believe, it bloody well rained and the tour got cancelled! Matt was very pissed off to say the least!
So, let me look in the diary to see where we are up to in the ongoing story of our travels; After the Bungle Bungles WA, we went to Derby WA ; don't even bother going there folks, its a one horse town and nothing to write home about; but we did meet there, 2 crazy French brothers, on a tandem bike, who were planning to ride 1000km to Cairns, Qld across the Gibb River Road,which is a dirt track... They were green as grass and I hope they made it without dying half way along...They had 2 water bottles each, no bike helmets, just very trendy trilby type hats and some bits of equipment strapped to the bike; mad or what?
As I told you all last time, we made it to Broome WA; and Cable Beach was absolutely fabulous, 22km of white sand, and we even did the camel ride at sunset thing; While on the camel, I was nervous for the first few minutes, (I was in the front and Matt at the rear) but soon I was loving it, so maybe I was a camel rider in a previous life? Who knows, but our camel was named Kallooley and was a very placid female. (see photo). The ride went for 1 hr and cost $60 each. (but worth it)...
Broome also has the oldest open air cinema in the world; The Star which has been going 90 years; while in there looking around, who should we bump into but Maeve O'Meara from SBS TV Show "Food Safari". And a very pleasant lady she was too; I had a quick chat to her, she was on a 'Girls and pearls' tour (Broome is the pearl capital of Australia), and we were stoked to meet her...
After Broome, we went inland again to Marble Bar WA; this town has the Guinness World Record for the most consistent number of days over 39C; this was back in the 1950s I think and still stands today; it often is 40C + and in summer it is usually the hottest town in the country. But let me tell you the town consists of one pub and a shop and not much else; the place was thought to be a marble quarry centre, but it turned out to be the stone blue jasper instead; we went to the original marble find, thought to be over 2 billion years old, which has a natural pool next to it; very pretty.
We pushed on to Newman which was about a 2 day trip as we had to go back to Port Headland, (on the coast) stay overnight in the port car park (free) but with amenities luckily
and then drive down to Newman; The weather turned a bit crap and we had to break out the winter clothes again as it has dropped to 17c and rain was in the air; Not good; That was also my humble opinion of Newman; which is a very big mine with a 1960s town attached to it.
Again there is one pub, a tiny shopping centre with a supermarket, lots and lots of shipping containers converted into accommodation for the workers and bugger all else; We were unsure of getting on the mine tour due to the weather, so we decided not to pay $40 for the caravan park and just parked in the car park at the visitors centre; it dropped to 2c and we had to break out the feather doona it got so cold. As I said earlier the tour got cancelled, so Tom Price was our next best bet for a mine tour; Matt was desperate to do one!
Anyways dear folks I will publish this now as the mac is running out of battery power;;; I hope you are all well and please leave comments... Love matt & Louise
No comments:
Post a Comment