The Pilbara and Tom Price

220 Tonne Haul Truck at Tom Price Mine

Tom Price is a town built to accommodate the iron ore mine and its people. It was built in the 60's after an American, Thomas Moore Price, discovered iron ore in the mountains here. Apparently he lobbied State and Federal governments to allow mining to proceed and for the ore to be exported.

Diane with one of the Smaller Mechanical Shovels

Tom Price was a vice president of Kaiser Steel in the US, and was the person most responsible for the mine being developed. Since then the mine has grown to be one of the largest in the world and produces some 28 million tonnes of high grade ore per annum. In addition to this shovel, the mine has another 8 with a capacity of up to 27 m3. Pretty big! They also have 35 huge haul trucks which have a payload capacity of 220 tonnes and weigh 164 tonnes unladen. They cost about $4 million each!

Tom Price Mine from the Lookout

More than half the truck drivers are female as they are much gentler on the equipment than the males.
 The mine is wholly owned by Rio Tinto and they must believe there is a future in iron ore as they plan to expand the mine to almost 40 million tonnes per annum in the next 10 years. The mine has plenty of ore to last another 50 years.

Kings Lake at Tom Price

Due to its livelihood being mining and associated activities, most of the workers are young people. The average age of the town is just 29 and the average wage is more than double the national average. A high proportion of the workers and contractors work on a fly in fly out basis but its a hard life.

One of the few recreational areas in the town is Kings Lake. This looks nice enough until you find out the water comes from a sewerage treatment plant and the water is contaminated!

View of Tom Price from Mt Nameless

Mount Nameless overlooks Tom Price and at 1128 m above sea level, its the highest accessible peak in WA. Its about a 20 minute drive from town or 1 1/2 hour walk. The drive up is pretty rough and suitable for 4WD only. Each year they have a running race up the mountain and the record is just 19 minutes! After two pleasant days in the nice van park, we took off for Exmouth and the Coral Coast.