Tom Price

As we drove towards Tom Price it was pretty clear we were entering mining country. There were numerous mountain ranges of red rocks. It was a 300km drive today with a short stop in Paraburdoo which is a town built by Rio Tinto to support one of their mines in the early seventies. It has a population of 2500 but has plenty of worker accomodation villages which indicates a large fifo workforce. Tom Price built in the 60’s was the same so the housing and infrastructure are exactly the same.

Tom Price is situated at 747 metres above sea level which is the highest town in WA and is consequently the same height as Arthur’s Pass township in NZ. The population is 6500 so quite a bit larger. Our camp ground is on the road to the Tom Price mine which is an enormous open cast iron ore mine. We hope to book a tour to look around one day.

We arrived at lunchtime and after we had sorted out our site we headed into town to get some groceries. Again we found a purpose built town centre with all the essential things and not much more. We drove around the town to check out the housing and community facilities. All of these mine/ infrastructure towns have great community facilities and the schools are very well supported.

Today was the second day in 2 months we were under 30 degrees and are expecting quite a cool night. Tomorrow we will drive out to Karijini National Park to explore. We are hoping for some nice walks after being on the road for the last 2 days.Read more