Pilbara

Finally at the Pilbaras. A small tick off the bucket list. I say small, as I've only had the priviledge of walking through half of the gorges. The Pilbaras are effectively 2 sites, approx 45 km apart. Camping is either in the west or east side and you travel to the other for the day(s) exploring.
Rather than spending a small fortune staying at the "Eco" friendly park, I bushed camped on the eastern side in the designated camping areas at $10 a night, no water and drop loo toilets.

At the visitors centre, I inquired about the condition of the dirt road linking east and west Pilbaras. The aboriginal attendant advised, "corrugated". Typically if a local says that, they mean it's badly corrugated for us city slickers. But she advised it's now tar for most of the west side, if you go back to the Hwy. Awesome.

But what I did not hear initially, was "most" of the west side. The last 8 km's to the first main gorge was dirt road and badly corrugated ie 2-3 inch deep corrugations. Coming to the realisation, I will have to come back with a 4wd, I turned around and headed back to camp.  If I had my old VK commodore, or any of the holdens I have owned previously, no probs.  I've had my VW Golf GTD, new for ovr 6 yrs and still not one rattle or squeak. If you know how I drive, that's pretty good. At least I think so.

WA school holidays have just started, so families are flocking out of Perth and places are filling up fast. It's the last time of year, they can go north due to the dry and wet season.  It's about 35-37 degrees and is already +38 and over 40 degrees further north, where I plan to go next. To be honest, it's a little too hot to be tramping in the bush or sight seeing. At the Pilbaras, my alarm would disrupt my sleep at 5am and I would be on the track by 6am. Even then, I would go through most of my 3 ltrs of water in my camel back by lunchtime as it's over 30 C by 9am.

Side note before the gorgeous pics - the mining towns homes do not have solar power? Why not? (answer down the bottom)


Bush camping spot - called Dingo  #72

This was the easy walking up and down. 

Had fun playing with the shutter on the camera.

Bats, Bats and more bats. Flying around and then when you look up, each of those large clumps in the tree is a bat upside down. I want to know, as I got shat on one of the bats and there head is hanging down, how do the shat??

Fern Pool - again - playing with camera shutter.

Check out these knarly trees. Roots system everywhere trying to find water.

Views from able Dale gorge as I walked around it.

This viewing area was close to Tom Price, famous for being a Rio Tinto iron ore mining town. Each boulder surrounding the massive car park, was covered in plaques saying farewell to their loved ones. The final one did leave a tear in my eyes as I remembered my father.

Pictures of the landscape. Pilbaras is all about the gorges. Nothing to see on top of the land. You have to walk down and these gorges can only be seen by stumbling across one, flying over or asking an aborigine.

MOVE OVER!!!!! On the road to Tom Price. That's a  single laned hwy wide enough for road trains going both directions with a smidge of room to spare.

Talk about a W I D E  load. 2 pilot vehicles and we had to get off the road. At this times, it would be nice to have a UHF radio / transmitter so you are forewarned and can pick a good spot to pull over.

Answer - Why don't mining and mining port towns not have solar power? Because there is so much red dust, that the solar panels are covered quickly and effectively useless.