Tom Price

We continued from Paraburdoo to Tom Price, which is only about 100
kilometres. Tom Price was quite busy when we arrived - it is a mining town
again with numerous mine vehicles but is also the closest town to Karijini
National Park where we were heading. It seemed that what vehicles that
weren't mine vehicles were 4wd vehicles with either a camper or a caravan
attached. We decided to stay in the caravan park overnight and head out to
the National Park the next day.

As we drove towards the caravan park we travelled along the road to Mt
Nameless which also leads to the Rio Tinto mine site. Both the car and the
caravan are getting covered in red dust even though we are travelling on
bitumen roads. The sight of the hillsides is amazing with stepped rocks up
the hills. Camping sites are at a premium in the mining towns as there are
so many fly in / fly out personnel and others requiring short term
accommodation. It must pay to own a caravan park in these areas. Not only
are the caravan sites limited, but so are staff and the camp owners were
keen to employ a couple to undertake reception/caretaking duties. It is
easy to understand why some grey nomads get so far into their trip and then
stop and work a while.

After so many flies the night before we were really uncertain about the
flies in this area but they must have a way of removing the pests from the
towns as they were not a problem. We are wondering what the national park
will be like!

Tom Price was quite a pleasant town. We had parked near the visitors centre
while visiting Coles and there were little girls everywhere dressed in their
black leotards heading to ballet or gymnastic classes just like in lots of
other towns. We went into the Post Office and it was funny to see a little
white pooch wandering around behind the counter, and being lifted up to be
patted by the customers - this could only ever happen in a small town.

Tom Price was not to be outdone by Paraburdoo as they do had a large truck
to show off - I could remember buying a toy yellow truck similar to this for
our son nearly thirty years ago! Boy how time flies. Peter would love to
have a try at driving one of these huge mine trucks - if he was ever to have
applied to work in the mines he would always have dreamed of being a "big"
truck driver!