Argyle Diamond Mine

One thing I have always wanted to do is visit the Argyle Diamond Mine and take part in one of the tours.  When Steve and I were in Kununurra 12 years ago, it wasn't feasible mainly because we just didn't have time to spare in our tight schedule of 4 weeks of annual leave to do it.  Four weeks might seem like a long time but when two of those weeks were taken up with just getting to the Kimberley from Adelaide, it didn't leave us with much time after our Gibb River Road trek.  I'm quite sure that there were bus tours out to the mine in 2002 but they took all day and we didn't have the luxury of that extra day.  People have also told us since then that the mine had discontinued the tours at times over that 12 year period so they weren't always available. 
I had enquired about the mine tours when we first arrived in Kununurra last year.  A friend, who worked at the visitor's centre in town, said that the bus tour option was now only available during the Ord Valley Muster and that the only other alternative was a flight to the mine to do the tour which cost $745 per person.  When the Ord Valley Muster came around this year I was keen to book myself on one of the buses as they only had 4 tours operating over the two weeks of the muster.  My main problem was that Steve was going to be away at Go Go Station during this time and the mine tours took longer than school hours to do.  I procrastinated for quite a while because the tour bus left Kununurra at 7.15am and didn't return until 4pm in the afternoon.  This meant I would have to rely on others to get the girls to and from school.  Although I had several people kindly offer to organise the girls, I still felt bad that I was leaving other people with our girls while I was off enjoying a tour.  Anyway, with some encouragement from my friends and Steve, I booked onto the last tour of the muster.  There had been weekend tours available but taking Erin and Becca wasn't an option as children under 12 were not permitted on the mine site anyway.
On a Friday morning, I had both girls dressed, breakfasted, hair done and ready to drop at my friend Bec's place at 7am.  Bec has 3 boys of her own to get organised so my two were not much extra to escort to school.  She walks too which suited me as car seats for Becca didn't need to be addressed.  Erin and her eldest boy could get themselves to class and Bec's middle boy would be dropped off at class and her youngest and Becca who are in kindy together would have been taken to class together.  Pickup had been organised with another friend whose daughter is Erin's age.  The older ones were catching the bus home and Kate would pick up Becca on her way home from work at 2pm.   Thankfully she had a booster seat left over from her two kids to use in the car for Becca.
OK......girls taken care of.  Off to the Argyle Diamond Mine I went.  There were bottles of water and refreshment towels being handed out when I got to the bus.  My main attraction though was the bowl of minties being offered as we got on the bus.  My experiences on buses have been mixed over the years.  I remember dreading school camps because the bus on which we were taken usually had no airconditioning and swayed like a listing ship so my tendency to throw up was high.  Very embarrassing in front of your whole class.  Either that or you spend the first day of camp explaining to your friends why you weren't talking to them on the trip because you felt so nauseous.  Then while at uni on a trip to Central Australia, a two day minibus trip had me curled up in a swag in the caravan park for a day due to motion sickness and a massive migraine.  At least my fellow students enjoyed their night on the town in Alice Springs.  Minties, therefore, were a welcome sight as the mint flavour and lolly itself might relieve any yukky feeling I might get.
As we drove down to the mine site which was 2 hours away, our friendly bus driver Keith (a long time Kununurrian) delighted us with facts and stories about anything and everything along the way.  We were informed about the Diversion Dam construction, the local quad roadtrains, the sandlewood industry, some local bridges and the perils of the wet season and the local history and geology of the region.  All in all it was a pleasant drive down there firstly because I didn't feel sick and secondly because someone was talking for most of the way which was good when there was no-one for me to talk to.  Most of the other tour participants were retired couples.  I sat next to a teenage girl who was with her parents who sat in front of us.  We passed some general banter but didn't have a full on conversation.
When we reached the security boom gates to the mine, there were a few minutes of waiting while checks were made and our guide came onto the bus.  Our guide was a member of one of the four indigenous groups affiliated with the mine and whose land the company Rio Tinto was mining.  He had developed his own tourism business through the mining royalties which each community had been given.  It was just one of a number of strategies which the indigenous land owners and the mine had put together so that the money wasn't abused and wasted.  That's not to say that a bit of corruption didn't take place in the aboriginal communities because the elders were in charge of the funds and no-one was allowed to question them.

Open cut mine pit

View from open pit lookout

I was wondering as we moved inside the gates whether photographs were going to be allowed as the security procedures were fairly strict.  Our guide said that photos were allowed except in areas where he would specifically ask people not to photograph during some of the final processing of the diamonds.  We pulled up before driving into the main area of the mine to allow a toilet stop for us.  Before we got off the bus, we were also informed of another strict rule.  We were told that if we dropped anything on the ground, that we were NOT to bend down and pick it up.  Anything dropped had to be picked up by our guide or another member of the mine site.  If we did bend down and pick something up off the ground, we would be taken away and 'patted down, strip searched and cavity searched'.....yikes!  Obviously the mine was of the belief that there could be diamonds just lying around on the ground and any one of us might pick one up.  Fat chance!  Unless the diamond was polished and cut, I wouldn't be able to pick it out from all the thousands of other useless looking quartz rocks laying around the place.  Who would arouse suspicion anyway and whip out a small magnifying eyepiece to closer inspect said rocks on the ground with the prospect of a rubber glove waiting somewhere behind closed doors.

Dump truck on display

Front end loaders to shift the ore

We spent most of our tour on the bus driving around the mine site.  It is understandable given the safety procedures in place for the workers let alone tourists.  We did get an opportunity to get off the bus at the top of the open cut mine which had only recently been closed.  Mining was now occurring underground so the open cut pit was now abandoned and being regenerated.  For the remainder of the tour around the conveyor systems and processing plants we had to stay on the bus.  Those employees lucky (or unlucky) enough to be part of the final sorting of the diamonds had the privilege of a personal bodyguard who followed them everywhere while they were on duty.  Toilet stops and lunch breaks were not excluded from this 'shadow' who was given to the sorters.  Like I said, it's hard to know whether it would be a privilege or a curse.

Tailings pile where lamproite
dumped after diamonds
extracted

Fort Knox Room

Our final stop before lunch was at the Argyle Diamond Display Centre.  A square building made of iron which looked several inches thick and riveted together like a fortress.  Impressive sliding glass doors at the front were the only enticing feature of this seemingly bullet-proof building.  We all moved into the room within and the door was locked behind us.  The only way out was a button on the wall on the inside which had to be pushed by our guide or another staff member.


Argyle's largest diamond

Colour varieties of diamonds

Inside the building was an amazing visual display of the creation of the diamonds and the process used to extract them.  Inside glass cases scattered around the floor space were magnificent examples of raw, cut and polished diamonds, some displayed separately and some included in beautiful jewellery pieces.   The difference in prices for what looked like the same size stones was quite remarkable.  Colour seemed to be the most valuable feature of the diamonds and the darker the colour, the higher the price.  I also couldn't believe the variety of colours that a diamond could come in.  Greens, yellows, champagnes and of course the most valuable colour of all, pink, for which Argyle Diamond Mine is famous.
Now who would you expect to market this newly discovered diamond colour?  None other than the queen herself, perhaps the most famous person to display exquisite gemstones in jewellery.  In a clever marketing strategy, the queen was approached with a sample of a pink diamond and asked if she would like to be the first to purchase such a rare beauty.  She, of course, said yes and so whenever she wore that striking piece of jewellery with the pink diamond in situ, people commented and she indirectly marketed the gemstone and spread the word, so to speak.


How the diamonds formed

Story behind the mine's
discovery

Also on display was the largest diamond ever found at the mine of 17 carats.  It is on display in it's raw, uncut form and looks just like a piece of quartz or opaque glass.  It's discovery was quite a story as it was discovered in the tyre tread of one of the big dump trucks which had been taking ore out of the open pit.  No wonder they were so weird about people bending down to pick up rocks off the ground.  Imagine picking up that little beauty!  What is probably more remarkable is that it must have been separate from the lamproite ore in which the diamonds are formed....an unusual event in deed as most gems need to be removed from the ore body.While everyone was milling around in the fort knox room, there was the unmistakable sound of something dropping on the floor.  You should have seen everyone's faces.  Oh my god!  Someone has dropped something......nobody move!  We all looked at each other and the person responsible just stood there with their hands in the air as if to say ' I won't touch it.'  The guide just casually walked over and picked it up off the floor quite nonchalantly, after which he said that it was alright to pick something up in here.  Obviously the polished tiled floor inside was not quite the same thievery risk that the gravel outside posed.  Anyway after a moment of tension and complete silence, everyone went back to reading the displays.  It was almost as if hooded men were going to suddenly drop from the ceiling on ropes and snatch the offending 'dropper' and whisk them off to some dark and dingy room for search and extraction procedures.  Security had certainly put fear into all of us.

After all that excitement, we were driven to the Argyle village where all the employees live, eat and pass the time when they are not on duty.  There were small blocks of units for accommodation, and the main dining area.  A small shop sold magazines, papers, confectionary and diamonds, of course, for all those employees who had spare change.  A gym and a pool were also available for the employees.  By this time everyone was starving.  Upon entering the dining hall, we were greeted with a hot meal selection as well as cold serves of meat, fruit and salads.  Breads of every kind were available as well as butter, margarine and everything else in between.  Every conceivable variety of juice, tea, coffee or soft drink was available and there were signs up all over the hall about making healthy food choices.  There was even dessert in the form of ice cream.  I was lining up with all the retired blokes waiting to make my unlimited choice of ice cream flavour while all the old dears were sitting back with their lattes watching their waists.  Pphh!  Forget waistlines when there is this much choice on offer.  It was like the Largs Bay Kiosk on the beachfront on a sunny Sunday afternoon.  The employees are spoiled for choice but then I suppose there isn't much else to look forward to after a 12 hour shift.
After lunch, we boarded the bus again and headed back to the gate where we dropped off our guide and continued on our way home.  It was a quiet trip home with some people sleeping, others reading and some chatting quietly about the days events.  I did enjoy the day although I don't quite know what I was expecting from the tour.  Given the constraints of safety and security on the mine site itself, I shouldn't be surprised that we didn't get off the bus more often but I must have been expecting a more close up look at the processing procedures.  I did get to see the display building which I had been told about by others so that was a treat.  They predict that the mine will close by 2020 which is when they expect the diamonds to run out.   Initially the mine was due to close in 2007 but they found that the ore body extended underground and it was viable to keep mining the site.  I feel lucky that I have been able to see this famous mine and can cross that off my bucket list.