Given the Sun’s persistence in coming up each morning and creating the inevitable heat that goes with it, we got on the road as soon as was practical with Port Hedland 150km away and firmly in our sights. On arrival it is however all a bit weird as the airport and part of the town is some 10km from the actual “Port Hedland” town and South Hedland where most of the people live, is further south again. All confusion aside we managed to navigate our way to the port where, being Sunday, we found pretty much everything closed – including the information centre…
No matter – we had a plan, the first part of which was to check out caravan parks for the night. There was a choice of two, one at Cooke Point at $44 and a crusty looking one out by the airport at $40 for the night. Say what!!! Well we figured the rates can’t be high due to tourists wanting to stay in the town and it probably related to the likelihood that workers from the mining operations stayed in them which means big money and higher rates. Whatever the reason there was no way we were going to pay that amount and given the small amount to look at in the town a rest area down the road was looking quite appealing.
It is interesting to note that Ross’s parents stayed in Port Hedland in 1976. Doreen wrote in their log “red dust covers everything and the park is the most expensive yet at $4.50, and not marvelous with only one powered site. Parks really only for permanents. They surely do not encourage tourists in this area“. It would seem therefore that over the last 35 years not much has changed.
The port is known for the iron ore and salt that is mined and shipped out of it. Huge trains of up to 682 cars in length drag the iron ore from out in the sticks east of the town to the port where it is loaded onto waiting ships with much of it heading to China, Korea and the like. The evidence of how much ore passes through the town is all around with rusty dust covering everything.
In direct contrast is the salt mining that takes place by way of evaporation ponds close to the town. Here there stands a huge pile of pure (at a distance anyway) white salt with heavy equipment working on top of it. We had seen evidence of the salinity of the water on this part of the coast while at the Cape in that there were rock pools that were dry of water but had 2-3cm of salt in them due to the continual evaporation of the small amount of water that would get trapped in the pools everyday.
After lunch and a self drive tour of the town, including Cooke Point beachfront, we did a shop and refueled and hit the road south west to our planned rest area for the night some 65km south west. As it turned out the rest area was a total mess with a herd of cows and all that goes with them the apparent residents. Onwards we tripped another 30km to the next one and other than the really friendly flies it was fine, with quite a few other travelers pulling in for the night.
