Day 205 – 23 Sept 2015 – Day 207 – 25 Sept 2015
Wednesday
Back on the road early today as we headed into Tom Price. Filled up with water and headed into Karijini National Park. Met the Head Park Ranger Dan who was just a great guy, obviously loved his job and his park. It is really wonderful to meet people like this that have a passion for watch they do. Thanks Dan, we really hope to see you again.
Thursday
Spent the morning exploring Hamersley Gorge.
Friday
Back to Tom Price today to get our permit for the road to Mt Sheila. We last visited Mount Sheila in 2005, certainly do not remeber it being so step a climb. We climbed 312m travelling just 2,000m or an average gradiant of 15.6%.
See here for our last exploration onto Mount Sheila. Walkabout – Mt Sheila
Day 208 – 26 Sept 2015
Mount Sheila is where the ruins of a Telecom repeater station is located. The mountain itself has a flat topped which is known as a mesa. The top is 975m above sea level. This is generally cooler here and does catch every breeze on offer. If you listen, you can hear and see the massive iron ore trains making their way to port. We spent a very restful night, blessed with gentle breezes. Rising early we took more photos of the 360 degree views in the sort light.
After eating breakfast it was time to start the steep descent to the base of Mt Sheila.
We were on our way to do some exploring around the eastern side of Kalbarri National Park. First stop was Hamersley Gorge.
The folded rock here is truly amazing. The infrastructure has certainly been upgraded since we were last here.
Explored some 4WD trails out near Rio Tinto Gorge. Interesting to see but couldn’t find any through tracks, so doubled back.
Quick visit to Wittenoon.
Headed to our camp at the Albert Tognolini Rest Area, which is at the top of the Munjina East Gorge.
We were surprised by the quality of the road and the brand new railway line in the area we travelled today. This was obviously a lot of new mine infrastructure. We later found out this was an access route for Gina Reinhart’s Roy Hill Mine.
Enjoyed a beautiful sunset.
Day 209 – 27 Sept 2015
Camping at Albert Tognolini which over looks East Munjinia Gorge is very popular these days.
Many years ago, you could sit here for days without being disturbed. Not the case these days with many other campers around us. We took an early start for Newman to stock up on groceries and fuel before heading to bush camp near Roy Hill iron ore mine. We camped in the area near Roy Hill many years ago and photographed storms on the plains. It is still one of the most talked about experiences we had in 2006 when we found ourselves in the middle of a huge electrical storm on the top of a treeless hill. Today the area is unrecognisable from that trip. New roads, railway lines and much light pollution. The main road has been re-routed around the mine and new village.
Eventually we found a quiet location and set in to watch a full moon rise on sunset over the lunar looking peaks around us.
