Tom Price
Later that day we arrived at Tom Price, a 5,000 head mining town, courtesy to Rio Tinto and the iron ore discovered by the American Tom Moore Price in 1962. It’s also the highest town in WA at 747m altitude. Due to a high number of young families there’s 2 schools plus a high school and child care centers, a newly renovated shady pool and a beautiful landscape around – a perfect little town and pleasant place to life if it wouldn’t be surrounded by mines. (I know: without the mines there wouldn’t have been a town here but…)
We did the Rio Tinto Mine Tour and heard the numbers: The big shovel, which weighs 480t, has a fuel consumption of 8,000L per 24h. The large trucks, that can carry 240t of iron ore, need about 20L fuel per km going up hill (and there’s 36 large 240t and 6 smaller 100t trucks). Then there’s also the diggers and excavators, the grinders and other machinery plus heaps of normal 4WD cars and the trains that transport the iron ore to the harbor in Dampier – an average of 5 trains per day from Tom Price, carrying 27,376t each. You see the brown dust that covers everything and you know what else is in the air apart from diesel fumes…
Rio Tinto had a production of 5 million tones p.a. at Tom Price when they started in 1966. By 2008 it increased to 28 m tones. The overall production of all Rio Tinto mines went from 166 m tones p.a. in 2006 to 290 m tons in 2013 and is estimated to reach 360 m tons in 2015.
Mount Nameless
Mount Nameless with Christin, sunset
We met our friend Christin again and invited her for a sunset drive up Mount Nameless, which is apparently the highest mountain accessible by 4 WD in WA. It wasn't too bad - the grader must have been here as well. We enjoyed a great view over the endless landscape but it was fairly busy up there. Sarah enjoyed the time with Christin and didn't care too much about the view and the sunset but we loved it.
and the sunrise was equally beautiful...