Chapter 8 - Western Australia - The Pilbara

From 28 July 2011 

To    6 August 2011

Prologue

The departure from Broome occurred with some confusion and disarray, as the Kelly family was spread all over the globe.  Jodi was holidaying in Darwin, Sara was working in Houston (Texas) and Shirley was in Melbourne visiting her sick father,  

For Trudi & Amanda life was roughly normal (apart from Grandpa duties).  And I was chief cook, bottle washer, navigator, driver, and gopher.  I quickly found out how well Shirley hides things in the caravan.  Still with no one to stop me I could east as many jelly babies as I liked.

Anyway on Wednesday 28th July (I think) I departed Broome just in front of Darryl & Kay.  Again, it was a lovely road, mainly flat and mainly straight.  I put the car into cruise control, made a coffee and read a book as the car did all the work.  Please do not do this at home.

About 360 km later we ended up at Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park—I had a powered site, Kay & Darryl missed out and scored a non-powered site.  The beach was superb—very similar to Cable Beach.  Eighty Mile Beach is around 350 km from Broome and 250 km from Port Hedland with NO other towns in between.  Sort of fairly remote.  As normal, we had a great multi-course dinner after 5pm nibbles & drinks.  

I nipped into the cellar (read under the bed) and found a bottle of red.
After a good night’s sleep I then discovered something that I have never struck before—the sun set and rose on the same beach, albeit at the western and eastern end of the beach.  No, it was not the red wine—I have witnesses.

Port Hedland

(I think) it was Thursday, so being a responsible husband I broke camp, left the remote paradise, and set off to Port Hedland, to set up camp before Shirley flew in from Melbourne.  The dew was so heavy that the clothes on the airer under the awning were soaking wet, and the red dust was red mud.  I found some nice shells (under orders from Shirley) and watched Darryl bait his hook before I departed.  Darryl later reported that he caught a sting ray—the reason for losing two hooks and 2 metres of line.

The wild flowers throughout this newsletter were found between Eighty Mile Beach and Port Hedland - a drive of about 250 km.

Thought for consideration - 12 mile creek is about 530 km from 9 mile creek. Hmmmm. 

Meanwhile back at Port Hedland, which is related to (and smaller than) Hedland South—a satellite city down the road created to house the people who could not fit into Port Hedland—which has expansion limitations.

As you do when in Port Hedland I visited the observation point at the assigned time and counted 232 cars on the BHP-Billiton Iron Ore train.  Actually the count was posted at the Information Centre.  I reckon the train was a mere 1.5 km (or so).  It took 9 minutes to pass me.  I then got caught by the same train at a railway crossing on the way back to the camp site.

Another thought for consideration—apart from mining this coast is renowned for its fishing.  Yet there is no fish shop is either Port Hedland or Hedland South.

How about a bit of trivia—Eighty Mile Beach (on this trip anyway) is about as far away from Melbourne as we are liable to be.  As Eighty Mile Beach was left behind this morning we are now on the way home.

This is interesting.  The shower cubicles at the Blackrock Caravan Park have mirrors, adjacent to the shower head.  So either the local guys are horribly vain, or they have enough water to promote guys shaving in the shower.  Neither point is relevant to me.

So then a photo of the salt works was is order.  The process to produce the salt uses 99% renewable energy. 

Shirley then flew into Port Hedland and we went into sight seeing mode to check out Port & South Hedland in one day—which we did.  Trains, coffee, iron ore tankers, coffee, shopping centres, coffee—pretty normal stuff.

Point Samson

On Monday 1st we drove the 250 odd km to Point Samson, a lovely seaside village (do we have villages in Australia?) an placed our caravan on a shady site about 50 metres from the beach.  The bad news was that the local fish and chip shop was closed for renovations.  The good news was that the only ‘tavern’ in town resided within the caravan park—a mere 50 metres in another direction.

 

I soon found out that Fremantle sardines were on the menu and there are pasta specials each Tuesday night.

 

We visited Roebourne, went for some long walks on the beach, then went on a tour of historic Cossack (abandoned port town) plus Port Lambert (iron ore loading facility).  The Rio Tinto statistics for the loading of iron ore onto tankers are mind boggling.  It was a very relaxing couple of days. Rent in Roebourne (near the Rio Tinto facility) is anything up from $1500 per week.  House blocks cost $1m—just so a cyclone can knock it down.

 

Have a look at the brickwork in the 150 year old building (below) in Cossack that has handled all sorts of cyclones which have systematically flattened its neighbours.  Note the interesting roof line.  Similar brick buildings in this area were built by some guys called Bunnings who were the ancestors of the people who gave life to the current hardware chain.

 

Just to support the tavern, we ate there last night—with pasta being the nights special.  My spicy prawn spaghetti was as good a pasta dish as I have had anywhere—it was superb.  I know that is a big call—but it was excellent.  The 50 metre walk home was good as well. Before we departed on Thursday I went for a pre-dawn walk on the beach and not only got more sunrise and bird photos—I found a couple of magnificent shells.  One went back into the water as it had a living occupant.

 

Karratha / Dampier

   

We had a short drive to Karratha, did some shopping, then set up camp in a lovely spacious camp park.  We then visited the status of the (now) famous ’Red Dog’ statue, Dampier, the Woodside gas complex and the most amazing aboriginal rock art complex in Australia.  There are over 4000 pieces of art that are etched into local (iron ore type) rock.  I have included two photos. 

  

I have also included an example of some local humour from a Dampier beach. This humour does not reflect the morals of your scribe.

     

On Friday we journeyed around 140 km to the Millstream-Chichester National park.  It was a very scenic drive to the park and even better within.  We were surprised to see how much water was in various water ways—one of which was a natural spring that flows all year around.  

The adjacent photos shows this water, where we could see the bottom maybe two meters deep below the lillies.  Unfortunately on the way home I ruined a tyre—third puncture for the trip.  Dirt roads again.  We did 370 km for the day.

   

As we departed the Pilbara on the 6th we reflected how rugged this area is and how important it is to the Australian economy.  

Truck drivers are earning $150,000+ and can be flown free of charge between their regular home (anywhere in Australia) and the mine on a regular basis (e.g. monthly).  If you take away mine cars and tourist 4WDs there would not be many vehicles on the road.

As we headed into the Gascoyne region of Western Australia our entire trip had covered about 9500 km, an average of 100 km per day with the caravan plus 48 km without the caravan.     

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