22 Jun 10 – Tom Price

By Lou: I loved the view from the top of Mt Nameless. Was great to look down on the town as a 2.5km long train carrying iron ore snaked its way out of town.




















The tour of the mine was pretty boring. I was more entertained by the ménage-a-trois going on in the bus seat in front of us and the chipmunk sitting next to me.

At the only caravan park in town (you could tell from the tariff and the price of an LPG refill) Samuel was delighted to find we were allocated the site next to the family of 6 he had met at our last campsite. Play time! On the other side of the family of 6 was a couple in a campervan with a 4 month old (at a guess). In the evening after they’d put their baby to bed I noticed they were conversing happily over dinner and a bottle of red. Hah! I thought. How things are going to change for you. Just look at your neighbours…parents desperate to get their “me time” and in bed by 8:30pm from exhaustion!

We were also within cooee of Pat and Sonja. Apparently Sam reported to them that his dad told him not to ask Pat to get his telescope out again but that was okay because he was bored of looking at the moon anyway. Back to Discretion 101 class for Sam.

By Craig: Setting up camp at Tom Price was supervised by a Galah or two, no not us, of the feathered type. Tom Price, the name as you might guess is the name of a person. In fact the short of a long story is that a surveyor working for an American company researching the Pilbara region for mining purposes was awarded posthumously with the honour of having the town named after him. Apparently Tom well into his 70’s was advised that in recognition of his services and dedication the company heads where to make him an executive of the company. Tom returned to his office after being advised of the promotion and promptly passed away. Pity but thankfully his name wasn’t Bartholomew Humperdinck.
A tour of the Tom Price open cut mine gave us a chance to get up close to some of the operation although we didn’t get the inside look at the pit we passed vehicles which had tyres greater in diameter than the height of the bus. For most of the tour we were in a bus (bloody Work Place Health & Safety) but they did let us out at one spot to stretch the legs a take a couple of photos. One thing the whole place had in common was everything was red with iron ore dust.



The other attraction Tom Price offers is Mt Nameless. Just a mountain with a half decent view of the town and surrounding area however Mt Nameless has a 4wd access road and yes you guessed it, I couldn’t wait to get to the top. Not at all a difficult ascent to the top with a better view of the mine than the one received on the tour. The decent was a little more fun in the loose stony gravel but all worth while including the knowledge that we had been to the highest 4wd vehicular access point in WA.