Good Morning Cape
Keraudren!
Low 13°c (55°F) – High 27°c
(81°F)
I woke early this morning, well before the first light of the day,
thanks to an achy shoulder that wouldn’t settle. In the end it actually did me a favour as
this morning’s sunrise was spectacular.
The tide was well up, bird life everywhere and aside from the birds the
only sound was the small waves making their way across the rocks. Perfect start to the day.
I’ve done a little research but can’t find the reason why there is very
little surf in the top end. Darwin
beaches any time we have been there have been virtually wave free regardless of
the tide and here the waves only came up a little as the tide was coming in
however very small – well under a metre.
We didn’t have a lot to pack up this morning but took our time to enjoy
the emerging day. As Shane took some
rubbish to the large skips provided he came back for the camera and showed me
his find - Rubik’s Cube sitting on the roadway just near the bins. Sometimes things in life are apparently just
too hard.
Phone reception has been pretty flakey for a lot of the trip but our
first plan of attack was to find a place to purchase a new caravan battery and
that would essentially determine our destination for the night. Eventually we located a place in Port Hedland
that had one and so that was confirmed as our port of call. Thankfully once the car was started we could
also start the freezer again and given the overnight temperature had been as
low as 13 degrees, its own temperature hadn’t risen to a point which would
render the food unsafe to consume.
Another cyclist along this stretch of road and given the strength of
the wind which was making driving a challenge I didn’t know whether to feel
sorry for him or just chalk it up to plumb crazy. It would not be a pleasant experience I’m
sure having multiple caravans and road trains whooshing past you on a bike – as
it was I was mostly sitting on 80km/hr with a side wind committed to pushing me
onto the wrong side of the road all the way.
Once again the terrain and vegetation changed with the flat land
eventually giving way to some rocky hills, massive river beds, some with water –
some without, but all spanned by large tall bridges in preparation for crossing
in the wet season, lots of creeks which were mostly dry and a deep dark red
soil that wherever it appeared showed a stark contrast to everything around it. Along with the change in vegetation we also
noted an increase in road trains, mostly mining carriers.
Driving along the highway we could see a large plane taking off in the
distance and all of a sudden it just disappeared. There were no clouds at all in sight and it
never re-appeared again.
We finally arrived in Port Hedland around 10.30am and headed for the
battery sales business to fix our issue.
$475 later and a note to self: start the trip with everything done
because you’ll save money in the long run.
We probably could have shopped around and bought one cheaper at home but
we need it now and this was apparently the only gig in town.
From there we headed off to find a caravan park. We’ve been lucky I guess so far in that we
haven’t needed to book in anywhere much in advance with the exception of the
usual places we tend to book including Darwin and Katherine. Generally we’ve been booking at most a couple
of days in advance, Broome was perhaps a week in advance but most have been
secured on the day. Our preferred camp
showed a sign of no vacancy as we drove past, so we phoned another park in South
Port Hedland and headed there.
This wasn’t the best park we’ve stayed in that’s for sure. The sites were elevated off the road so high
and so abruptly that unless you had an off-road van (ie one higher off the
ground than a normal van) by the time you got the van in place on the site the
tow-bar on the car and the draw bar on the van was dragging on the ground with
no easy way of getting a jockey wheel in place to get the van off the car. Yes you could put blocks under the back
wheels of the car to elevate it – but we didn’t have anything we could use and
you would need to raise it at least 15-20 cm. Yes you could back the van
further back on the site to get the car’s back wheels up off the road but then
the back of your van was essentially ¼ of the way onto the site behind you.
We asked to be moved as there were hardly any vans along that “street”
and were able to move to a “slightly” less steep site but still had to back the
van beyond the rear allowance and the park is essentially selling sites to
people for vans that are simply too big for the site. Unless you had a motorhome or a van less than
17 feet long you were bound for problems.
Aside from the site issues and two dogs at the house next to the park
that barked and howled every time a police or ambulance siren was sounded (and
they were frequent), the lack of rubbish bins was puzzling. Still we had power, water and a place to stay
for the night so all good!
Port Hedland is the second largest town in the Pilbara region
of Western Australia, with an urban population, according to the 2018
census, of 14,320 including South Hedland where we are staying which is 18km away.
We took a drive around after lunch to
see the sights and found, aside from the incredible amount of dust, it was a
very strange town in the way it was spread out.
An extensive road system moves the mindboggling amount of mining
vehicles to and from their destinations and there are sections in between the
inhabited areas where there is nothing but mudflats.
The Port has a natural deep anchorage harbour which, as well as being
the main fuel and container receival point for the region, was seen as perfect
for shipment of the iron ore being mined in the ranges located inland
and is the world’s largest bulk export port. May 2022 saw a monthly throughput
of 48.5 million tonnes, of which 47.7 million tonnes was iron ore exports. It
is a very active area to view with tug boats tirelessly moving in and out of
the channel to usher the huge ships to and from the port and smaller boats
ferrying workers. The tugs had their
work cut out for them as we counted at least 18 ships off the coast on the
horizon waiting to dock.
The ore is moved by railway from four major iron ore deposits
to the east and south of the Port Hedland area.
And when they say they move it by railway – they mean Big Ass
Railway. There is a photo opportunity
from one of the bridges under which the rail lines run. As I was on top of the bridge, one of the
empty trains passed beneath me. Two
engines pulled 135 wagons, followed by two more engines in the middle and a
further 130 odd wagons followed. If you
zoom in on the photo that shows the last wagon you can see the start of the
train way up in the top middle of the photo just above the second power pole. Shortly after, as Shane went up on the bridge,
another train of similar size returned fully loaded. I couldn’t help but think they looked like
perfectly baked oversized loaves of bread, so perfectly loaded.
Other major resource activities supported by the town include the
offshore natural gas fields, salt, manganese, and livestock. Major deposits of lithium are being developed
and exploited south of the town as well. Grazing of cattle and sheep was
formerly a major revenue earner for the region, but this has slowly declined. Port Hedland was also formerly the terminus
for the WAGR Marble Bar Railway, which serviced the gold mining area
of Marble Bar from July 1911 until closure on 31 October 1951. Located between Port Hedland and South
Hedland are the large salt hills of Dampier Salt, a subsidiary
of Rio Tinto. These large mounds have almost become a tourist attraction
in their own right and certainly offered an interesting photo opportunity.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology the Western Pilbara,
including Port Hedland, is the sunniest place in Australia being the only place
to record an annual average of more than 10 hours a day of sunshine - around
218.9 clear days annually. However, pollution
from iron ore dust regularly exceeds national standards. The local
hospitalisation rate for respiratory infections is 30% higher than the Western
Australian average. This of course also
explains the magically disappearing plane as there is a constant haze of dust
over the area and while mentioning the plane we were also interested to note
that there are 3 International Airports in Western Australia – Perth, Broome
and Port Hedland. Obviously Perth being
the capital, and I get Broome being a prime tourist destination, but couldn’t
quite figure out why Port Hedland. There
would be lots of FIFO flights in and out of the area, but as the flight details
for the airport indicate flights via Port Hedland from Perth to Salatar in the north-east
region of Singapore and to Bali, seem to be the only international destinations.
The only other arrival and destination details
include daily flights to Perth, several chartered flights to transport workers
to remote mine sites and itinerant charter flights and inter-regional services
including Broome, Karratha and Newman. I
think they only just scraped in the “international” part.
From the port we stopped off at a little open air museum of old trains,
trucks and mining equipment and on to a couple of lookout areas and parks. The waterfront park and various lookouts were
beautifully presented, green and shady and a vast contrast to the rest of the
town which is shrouded in red dust. Apparently a lot of work continues to be done
on the parklands which are a credit to the town.
Before heading back to camp we refueled and stopped in at the local
supermarket to top up supplies. While
driving through the carpark endeavouring to negotiate into a park, a car reversed
quickly out of its park and very nearly collided with the front corner of our
car. Shane braked and hit the horn,
narrowly missing the collision but the person had clearly not looked at all
because we had been driving at less than walking pace.
Back at camp and still more caravans arrived, were designated our
original site – and moved to another location.
It astounded me that they continued to try to put people on this site at
all.
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