Paraburdoo

Mon 23^rd June

 
 
 
 

Today the sky was still overcast but it didn’t rain. We travelled with varying degrees of wind in our faces, on our side and even behind us for a short distance. After the turn off toward Tom Price the country changed dramatically.  There were rocky hills, some pointed and some with flat tops. Mostly we drove through valleys surrounded by ranges and there were many places where we could see gorges going back between them and caves in their sides. At one stage a fox stood at the side of the road and watched us pass. For the whole journey we didn’t see a single house, although there were a few signs on tracks leading to stations. The most surprising thing was how green the trees were and how much spinifex there was. There was hardly any bare ground. When we stopped for lunch we met up with a couple who had just come from Paraburdoo and they said how good it was there, so we decided to give it a go. It is a mining town and the caravan park is new and has been set up primarily to house the fly in fly out workers. There are long dongers set up on most of the sites and there are about 40 sites for caravans.  We had to book in with the mining company and it is only $25 per night (a bit different to the coast) There is a free laundry where even the washing powder is supplied and the ablution block is spotless.

Tues 24^th June

We went into Paraburdoo to the library to get information and maps of the national park. There were about 30 pre-schoolers in there participating in a play group. We were surprised that there were so many young children in such a small town but were told that the average age of the town population is 10 – imagine that! We needed a bit for our gas heater and had to go to Tom Price to look for it. Tom Price is the highest town in W.A. From there we went out to the Karijini, the second largest national park in W.A., and were entranced by the scenery on the way out. It was so varied with tall crumbly looking hills made up of layers of flat sided rocks with lots of caves in them. Then there were more rounded hills covered in grass. There were lots of wattles coming into flower, purple flowers on straight stems about a metre high, bright red flowering hakeas and lots more. We thought we had discovered a new type of cockatoo that is a reddish brown colour until we realised that they were actually white cockatoos covered in dust. And it got even better in the park - canyons, pools, and a waterfall. We ran out of time to visit the fern pool and some of the other canyons.