Damn cockatoos! They may be pretty but they
make a lot of noise very early in the day. After a leisurely breakfast we
called in at Tom Price Information Centre where Russell & I, as the day’s
drivers, had to sit through a 20 minute road safety video before we were issued
permits to drive on Rio Tinto’s (mining company) roads. Leaving Tom Price we
drove along a very wide, metaled road running straight for kilometre after
kilometre parallel to twin railway tracks. We passed 2 trains, the 1st
being at least 2km long with 240 wagons.
The navigator managed to get us to our destination of Mt Sheila. The
road from the base to the top was 2km of sealed road, extremely narrow and so
steep that we had to crawl up in 2nd low. Driving towards it looked
pretty impressive but nothing to what it was like once we got to the top. I
climbed on top of our vehicle to get above the scrub line and took a 360 degree
video for Kath. We could make out the
hill at Tom Price which we had driven up the night before 40 km to the south
east and the smoke from a fire in the Millstream National Park 100km to the north
west. The video and photos cannot do the scene justice nor can I adequately
describe the majestic panoramic views. We stayed up there long enough to have a
coffee before continuing on Hemersley Gorge on the Western side of the Karijini
National Park. A little oasis in the middle of nowhere. Russell & Kath had
a swim in the rock pools while I clambered over rocks taking photos of rock
formations, waterfalls, ponds, flora and fauna (lizard). We drove back up the
road a short distance to get a breeze where we stopped for lunch in the shade
with a temperature of 42 degrees. Continuing on we called in at a Wittenoom.
There is no signage saying what this place is, the authorities having removed
it all and no longer acknowledge that the place even exits. It was an
underground asbestos mine which was shut down over night. There are still a few
people living there but from the appearance of street signs, sealed roads and
curbing it would appear that most of the houses were removed. Continuing on we came across a road train with
its rear trailer on its back serving as a poignant reminder of what can go
wrong out here very, very quickly. We re-joined the Great Northern Highway at
Auski Roadhouse only 35 km north of where we left it to enter Karijini National
Park 2 days before. We have now travelled over 2,000km. We had barely set up
camp when we were alerted to a snake in the vicinity. A Coppertail; about ½
meter long, skinny, light green in colour with around the last 1/3 being copper
coloured. It was my first encounter with a live snake in the wild. I think we
were more perturbed by the snake being around camp than the snake was being
around humans.
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