Tanami Touring - the Tanami's a picture

Hey Andrew

I worked at the Tanami Gold Mine in 1991 as a surveyor, that mine was 42 km above Rabbit Flat, the mine lease crossed the Tanami track.

I think there is another company there now, there are other leases near by as well.

Does this tour end in Darwin? if so you might like to pass through Kakadu on your way home as I told Bilbo there is always a beer in the fridge.

Cheers Steve.

Mate if you dig anywhere out there you find something useful, so I guess you may as well make it easy on yourself and dig the holes near the road??

Hey young fella....up in the warmer country, eh. Its pretty wet and soggy here in the deep south, and a tad cool as well.

Coming down from Karratha throw a left at the old Barradale RH turnoff. Go to Mount Augustus and have a look around there.(diesel is very expensice at MA so refuel if you need to at Mt James/Burringurrah aboriginal community) Then south east to Meekatharra. From there to Sandstone and look at London Bridge while there, down to Menzies via Lake Ballard. All these gravel roads are normally in good condition. At Lake Ballard take a look at the sculptures(although someone said they were standing in water after all the rain). Then south to Kalgoorlie and then east along the Transcontinental Line to Rawlinna. South east from there to Cocklebiddy and home along the Null. That was our route last year

Enjoy.

Cheers

The offices and stuff are probably close to the road because they get quite a bit of freight in by trucks, but some of the open pits etc would be wherever the ore is and wherever it's most economical to get the most out of it.

The old Tanami (Otter Gold) was taken over by another mob probably around '99. The Granites was a much bigger operation and found a new deposit some distance away from their major mine so were going to truck it to the Tanami mill as it was closer, that was some time ago!

I think they mine wherever they can find the stuff and continually explore to extend the mine life. I was on work experience at the Tanami and later had a job at the Granites for a bit. Really nice country to work in especially if you get to go to Darwin on your week off!

I know of a very very large mining company that has very large leashold rights in the Tanami and they are currently gearing up to dig it all up for Uranium and Gold. The area is more than 10000 square km so keep your eye out in the near future.

Toytruck