Day 46 – Sandy Creek to Karijini – Travelling the Big Island

27 July 2019

After a good night’s sleep by all, we packed up camp and headed into Newman for a tour of the Mt Whaleback Mine.

Newman is a BHP mining town, and was a ‘closed’ town – meaning that you had to work for the company to be able to live there, until sometime in the 1990’s (I think that was when it opened up anyway). Mt Whaleback is the largest open cut iron ore mine in the world at 5.5 km long and 2 km wide. They have literally moved a mountain. Whaleback used to be 805 m above sea level. The bottom of the pit is currently 135 m below sea level and they are still going deeper. The size of this one operation is astounding, and it is just one of many enormous mines in the area, with more to still be developed. Whilst I find the scale of the operations impressive, it leaves me with a greater desire than ever to live as waste free as possible, and not to buy stuff I don’t need. Stuff that is made from sending Australian resources to China, and then having it shipped back here.

The tour content was fantastic, however Bill and I both greatly disliked the tour guide. To add insult to injury, she had made the scones for morning tea and they were absolute rubbish. Just to sound like a truly ungrateful tourist.

We fuelled up, stocked up on food, grabbed some lunch, and then headed out of town, arriving at Dales campground in Karijini National Park mid afternoon. We set up camp and went for a wander around the campground. Dinner was again followed by triominos. Dad was unable to back up his victory though, with Bill taking out both games.