DiNo's Travels Around Australia - 2014/2015/16/17: Day 95

The first 84 km today were spent travelling to Wittenoom. "Why?" you might well ask. Well...... when one worked for CSR in the early days, any indiscretion was punishable by being sent to Wittenoom as "Water Boy". Wittenoom was the town adjacent to the Wittenoom asbestos mine in the Wittenoom Gorge. Noel has now done his penance as confirmed in the attached picture. Sadly though, the asbestos scare has resulted in all evidence of the name Wittenoom in the town being erased and there is an emphasis on downplaying its existence. We drove a few kilometres into the beautiful Wittenoom Gorge but even the road is in a sad state of disrepair and tourists seem to be discouraged from entering. We did see some asbestos which we handled with care.

We did our Wittenoom thing early in the morning, yes even before breakfast, and we saw some beautiful views of the sunrise on the Hamersley Range.

We then rushed back to the van for breakfast after which we headed off to Newman, 191km away. This was a drive with mountains shadowing us all the way and the erosion, slippage and rockfalls created great red gashes in the straw coloured spinifex which adorns these mountains. The beautifully coloured river red gums added the customary contrast.

Newman is a mining town of course and is the centre of BHPB's mining operations in the Pilbara. Needless to say it has red attributes too. We had our first glimpse of the mine from the road but hope to see more tomorrow. Meanwhile we are preparing for a cold first night here. It was 2 degrees this morning.