Thursday 11.8.2011: 21 degrees - 30 degrees - sunny. Drove 201 kilometers down the North West Coastal Highway to Roebourne, called into the Visitors Information Centre which is in the old Roebourne Gaol, had a look around then drove on to Point Sampson, the Caravan Park was full but they told us to go across the road to the Tavern Caravan Park and we were lucky to get the second last site, we only just fitted. Went for a walk around the coastal pathway to honeymoon cove - very picturesque, it was low tide, saw a little bunch of Stuart Desert Pea flowers, walked back to the Tavern for a drink which we found very expensive, after Port Hedland this area is very quiet. But just up the road is the Cape Lambert iron ore loading facility with a jetty that is almost 4km long. There were a number of ships loading and waiting to be loaded. Point Sampson is a up market housing area with house prices up to $1.5 million
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| Point Sampson |
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| Honeymoon Bay |
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| Old Roeburn Gaol |
Friday 12.8.201: 22 degrees - 33 degrees - sunny. Lloyd was looking out at the ocean whilst having breakfast and saw a couple of whales playing flipping their tails out of the water and rolling on their sides then blowing water, we thought we had the best site in the park.
We decided to make our way to Dampier via Karratha, as one of the ladies I met in the amenities block told me there was nothing at Karratha except a big shopping centre as it is a mining town and regional centre, and we should go to Dampier as it is a lot nicer. Karratha has a number of new suburbs and seems to be growing rapidly with new areas set aside for industrial use. The cost of housing is staggering, average three bed home $1 million to 1.5 Million, rentals up to $2500 per week. The mining employees must earn a mint. We went on to Dampier, the loading port for Rio Tinto Pilbara Iron and Dampier Salt. Dampier Salt has an enormous area for evaporating water from seawater leaving the salt to be harvested.- they export over 4 million tons a year. Again the place is dusty and noisy with the iron ore loading The only caravan park has a max stay limit of three nights but it certainly was a lovely spot right opposite the water, looking out on a few of the islands in the Dampier Archipelago, the lady running the Dampier Transit Caravan Park fitted us in as there were no sites left, we were able to park beside the grassy area for tents as we only have one vehicle. We had an unpowered site for $20 which is a lot cheaper than Karratha which is $50 per night. We had a look around the area and drove out to the Burrup Peninsula to see the Woodside operated LNG North West Shelf Venture, it is absolutely enormous and very noisy. The centre tells you how they extract lots of things out of the gas before it becomes liquid gas. They certainly employ a lot of people, there are people everywhere in orange suits with white fluro strips across them, either moving about working or driving vehicles here or there, its all a bit mind boggling after driving in flat country for 100’s of kilometers with only trees, scrub or cattle.
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| Salt stockpiles leaving Dampier |
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| Dampier loader at night |
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| Woodside LPG Gas installation |
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| Hersons Cove |
We drove back down the Burrup Peninsular to Hearsons Cove to watch the stairway to the moon at 4.30 pm as the tide would be out and the moon would be coming up. We were there with plenty of time to spare, parked on the beach which is made up of a lot of broken coral and small crushed shells, we talked to the people around us, and 4.30pm came and went and we still waited and watched, it was still light and we couldn’t see the moon come up over the ocean. After ¾ of an hour, the guy next to us with his tripod set up said this is ridiculous, he would come back the next night when the low tide would be 5.30pm, and just as he spoke I saw the moon rise above the thick band of smog on the horizon, the effect was not good, we also decided to try tomorrow night.
Saturday 13.8.2011: 22 degrees - 33 degrees - sunny and a bit humid. Went to see if we could stay the night again, and as people had to move out after three days, we were in luck, a powered site was only $24. We set up in our new site, and had a rest, then went out to the road to Hearsons Cove and drove out to Deep Gorge to check out the rock art images which are petroglyphs not paintings, estimated to have been produced from 25-30,000 years ago. When we started walking up the track through the gorge to the rock art, it was very hot, and we saw lots of jumbled rocks with bits of art here and there, we took a few photos but decided if there are 4,500 - 6,000 petroglyphs we didn’t need to see them all, it was too hot for climbing up mountains of rocks.
We drove out to the beach and walked out on the sand flat to see how long it took us to reach the deeper water, it took us 15 minutes to get out there and 15 minutes to get back. We had afternoon tea and sat and watched people, setting up tripods and all ready with their cameras for the Stairway to the Moon effect, and just before 5.30pm, a group of girls all in black formal type gear all came down the beach with their champagne glasses and walked out over the sands flat, right in the line of the people who had set up to take their photos. As had happened last night the moon took longer to come up, until it rose above the smog. A lot of people were impatient and left, but we sat it out and we thought it was worth the wait, the girls had gone and we managed to get a pretty good effect.
After dinner we went for a walk to see the big wharf which was not far from us, the trains come in loaded with iron ore which they stockpile and just keep loading on to boats and they leave and another one comes in straight away, no wonder it is so noisy at night, and no wonder the smog is so great over the ocean, it is sad to see so much ore leaving our country, you wonder what it will do to the area. We counted one train with 256 carriages all full of iron ore, and being towed by three diesel 5000HP engines, the ore is not covered, being four times the weight of dirt I guess it does not blow away.
Sunday 14.8.2011: 23 degrees - 33 degrees - sunny. Drove to Karratha and checked out the big shopping centre, Woolworth were absolutely packed, each checkout had at least 10 or 12 trolleys overflowing with goodies waiting to go through the checkout, so I guess everybody from near and far must do their shopping on a Sunday morning.
We left Karratha and headed up the North West Coastal Road which is very flat country with a few trees here and there, scrubby bushes and spinifex everywhere, you realise this is what the aboriginal art shows with all the dots they use. We stopped at West Peawah River and had lunch and decided to stay overnight, after the noise of the trains and conveyors filling up boats every night, the camp spot was lovely and quiet.
Monday 15.8.2011: 23 degrees - 35 degrees - sunny with clouds. We woke to a very foggy humid morning and lots of clouds which gradually cleared. We traveled up the North West Coastal Road towards Port Hedland and turned right down the Great Northern Highway, after traveling over 300 kilometers through mostly flat country with low scrub we came to the foothills of the Hamersley range and we decided to stay at the Munjina Roadhouse which at least has green grass to camp on, but the cost per night is $35. The caravans just keep on coming in.
Tuesday 16.8.2011: 18 degrees - 30 degrees - sunny. Travelled down the Northern Highway over the Hancock Range which looked like very big terraces of red rocks all evenly set out, then we went over the Hamersley Range and on to Newman. Called at the Information Centre where there is a huge yellow mine dump truck and it is so big, I could even stand in the front end loader and could only just reach the roof , the tyres on the vehicle are massive.
The BHP BILLITON Mt Whaleback mine at Newman is the largest single open-cut ore mine in the world - currently 5.5km long and 1.5 km wide. The ore is transported on a 426 km rail line to Port Headland in trains that average 3.75 km long with 6 locos & 212 - 336 ore cars holding total of approx 42,000 tons. So far over a billion tons have been shipped.
At the Visitors Centre, Lloyd booked a mine tour for the Thursday morning, I decided I had seen enough red stuff. We then went to the Mt. Whaleback Van Park and booked in for two nights.
Wednesday 17.8.2011: 16 degrees - 24 degrees - cloudy. I did the washing, then we took a drive to the lookout over the town, then out on the Marble Bar Road to Ophthalmia Dam, it was very windy and the lake looked cold, so we had a cuppa and drove back to the Van Park.
Thursday 18.8.2011: 14 degrees - 29 degrees - sunny and cloudy. Lloyd went on the mine tour and I did some shopping and read a book. We then drove 108 kilometers up the Northern Highway to the Mt. Robinson 24 hour Rest Area where we stayed overnight. In the afternoon we went for a walk up the gorge at the back of the rest area and when we came back we stopped and chatted to other folk in the area, one older guy was doing a charcoal drawing of one of the mine workers who had called in to have a break from driving. We have met some very interesting people in the rest areas.
Friday 19.8.2011: 12 degrees - 28 degrees - sunny. Drove about 80 kilometers to Karijini National Park and booked into Dales Gorge Camping Ground for two nights, we set up camp then set off to walk to Dales Gorge lookout to Circular Pool, then did the Rim Walk about 1 ½ kilometers, just to get us in practice for the Gorge walk the next day.
Saturday 20.8.2011: 11 degrees - 29 degrees - sunny. Decided to walk to the Circular Pool end of Dales Gorge and enter the gorge at that end which was rock steps straight down into the gorge. We walked to the Circular Pool and listened to all the young people jumping into the water and their sound effects as they found it very cold, the pool does not get any sun. Dales Gorge walk of 3 kilometers was very pretty with water running along the gorge floor, plenty of trees to give a protection from the sun and lots and lots of broken red rocks or iron ore and there were lots of birds and lizards. We walked to the other end of the gorge, saw the Fortescue Falls then walked an extra 300 meters past a tree with small bats hanging in it, and saw Fern Pool it is very beautiful. We walked up the Gorge and back to our camp site and had happy hour with our neighbours.
Sunday 21.8.2011: 8 degrees - 29 degrees - sunny. Drove about 100 kilometers to Tom Price another mining town owned by Rio Tinto, stayed at Tom Price Tourist Park, a beautifully laid out town with parks and sporting facilities and houses built with bricks, not temporary looking like Newman. Tom Price is WA’s highest town 740 meters above sea level, situated in the Hamersley Range. I washed to get the red dust out of everything and vacuumed, whilst Lloyd washed the Coaster. We had happy hour with our near neighbours about 10 people, including our neighbours from the night before, whom we met at Karijini National Park.
Monday 22.8.2011: 14 degrees - 29 degrees - sunny. Drove 80 kilometers through various ranges to Paraburdoo, which is a lovely laid out town with parks, community hall, swimming pool area, playing fields and a shopping centre for mining families. Most of the buildings were brick - unusual in this part of the country. We found a tree overhanging the shopping centre car park and had our lunch in the shade. We then drove another 100 kilometers with the mountains disappearing and the land becoming gently undulating to flat with red soil everywhere, arrived at the Beasley River Rest area and found a shady spot to camp for the night, had afternon tea watching a lizard in front of us, he didn’t move for a couple of hours, a cute little guy stretched out full length along a tree branch, with his head held up in the air, I wondered if they are like crocodiles and have to be in the sunlight to digest their food.
Tuesday 23.8.2011: 18 - 30 degrees - sunny. Drove about 240 kilometers over relatively flat land to the Barradale Rest area which is on the Yannarie River about 70 kilometers south west of the Nanutarra Roadhouse. As usual up here, the river is dry but with plenty of evidence of raging water in the wet. The rest area is a very big area and a few trees here and there, obviously it is a flood area and the land is covered in red dust, the wind blew the red dust past us in the afternoon, then next morning the red dust blew back past us from the other direction.
Wednesday 24.8.2011: 19 - 35 degrees - sunny. Drove 205 kilometers over flat land becoming like big red sand hills stretched in lines across the land with spinefex dotted here and there, to Exmouth where we booked into the Big 4 Van Park, caught up with the washing and had a rest from driving and looking at red dirt on the side of the road, we are camped on grass even though some of the roads are red.
Thursday 25.8.2011: 20 - 34 degrees - sunny. Rest day reading and walking to the shops.
Friday 26.8.2011: 20 - 35 degrees - sunny. Walked to shopping area, had our hair cut then coffee at the bakery, called in to the Visitors Centre and booked in for a tour of the area on Monday.
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