Down the Marble Bar Road and Through Crazy Country

   Today we went down along the Marble Bar Road which goes pretty much from the Great Northern Highway to the Great Northern Highway (If you don’t get it, have a look at a detailed map of The Pilbara). It goes through Marble Bar, Nullagine and at pretty much the end, Newman. We got away fairly early and drove down the road to the “Marble Bar,” which is actually made out of Jasper. After that, we went down to Chinaman’s Pool. There were lots of birds there; an elusive Jabiru, lots of Galahs, cormorants and other waders. We drove along the road to a place called “Jasper Deposit,” which was a place where you could have a look for some, which wasn’t hard because around there there is Jasper everywhere. It wasn’t as spectacular as the Marble Bar, but the fine for taking Jasper from there was $ 10 000.

After that we went to the end of that road to the Comet Gold Mine. They don’t mine there anymore, but they are planning to once the tourism has died down and they have sent the old machinery to a museum. After paying a $6 entry fee to have a look at a museum we went inside. There was a fantastic rock, mineral and gem display that had all, as far as I know,  been found in WA. They had Tiger Eye, Citrene, Amethyst, Gold Chips, Hematite and other stones for sale. After going out the back and having a look at all the old machinery we got back in the car with all our pockets feeling considerably lighter than they had when we went in.

We drove down the unsealed, but not very corrugated road to Nullagine. We had lunch there, and it was still cold. After having a look at some old machinery and the pub, we left and started driving down the road again. We had been passing through a very crazy Mountain Range. It was considerably high,200-500m high with red hills, green spinifex and an assortment of other stuff, either Jasper, other rocks or old machinery.

After a few more hours of driving, we arrived in Newman. Newman is a mining town, only bigger than Marble Bar because of Mt Whaleback mine. More than 90% of the population are Miners, and the Caravan Park that we are in is either Grey Nomads or Permanents. Tomorrow we are going to try and get into a tour of Mt Whaleback, which is according to dad is one of the biggest holes in the ground. After that, we hope to get to Karijini, but we will just have to wait to see what happens.

Louis