Blog Circle | November-trip to Yandicoogina

I’m rather excited to share this months local outing. We traveled to the Pilbara to visit the Rio Tinto iron ore mine of Yandicoogina in Western Australia. We departed freezing Perth early in the morning and as soon as we got off the plane at Barimunya airport the heat and humidity hits like a punch in the face. There is a stillness of the outback that can even explain, the dirt is so red and colours so bright my eyes still hurt when I think about their glaring vibrancy. Im still in awe that anything survives out here, the unrelenting heat is energy sucking and it felt like being cooked in an oven. I foolishly picked up a rock to take a closer look and had my fingertips scorched.

There is an aboriginal story of how Barimunya was formed.  A long time ago, when the earth was soft a man giant and evil man called Ningarana terrorised and ate nearly all the people until there was only one family remaining.  A mother, her two sons and their wives. The two brothers decided they had to do something about Ningarana and devised a plan to kill him. They made a trick for him using a Jadunmara (rock wallaby) to lure him into a cave.  They placed the jadunmara up the back of the cave and disguised a hole in front of it that held a forked stick. When the Ningarana came looking for the Jadunmara he fell in the hole and got stuck. The brothers then killed the Ningarana and burnt him. They say the iron ore is his liver and the red soil of this country is his blood.

These photos certainly don’t do it justice but here is a snippet of our adventures. And of course it wouldn’t be a proper trip to the mine without blowing something up.  Keep following the circle to check out the work of Billie Mae Photography