Mining Towns in the Pilbara

Port Hedland, Onslow, Karratha and Dampier

Everything is big in the Pilbra - big ships, big trucks, big salt piles, big prices!

It was fascinating to see all these remote mining towns, particularly with the million dollar 3 bedroom houses!  Prices are astronomical due to their shortage but there seems to be quite a few developments happening, particularly in Karratha.

Jack helping change a tire!  

PORT HEDLAND

We spent a couple of days here to restock after our time at 80 mile beach and had a lovely night out at the Yacht Club which has a great playground for the kids.

Iron ore ship at Port Hedland

Mountains of salt in Port Hedland!

Phil had to take a photo of an oversize load - we had to pull off the road completely for this one!

After Port Hedland, we headed south to Karinjini National Park which was so beautiful that it deserves a post of it's own!  It is situated right near Tom Price - so not a bad place for the miners to visit on their days off!  We could have then gone straight across to Exmouth and the Ningaloo Reef but we really wanted to pay 'Red Dog' a visit so headed north again to Karratha and Dampier, stopping at Onslow on the way.


ONSLOW

Onslow is quite a small town but they are gradually modernising things.  It was mainly a port for wool in the past but now mines salt and is an oil and gas hub.  The original town was established in the 1880's but kept getting smashed by cyclones and flooded so was relocated in 1925, away from the Ashburton River.  We had dinner at the local pub which has a great selection of photos from over the years on it's walls.  

The Onslow van park is right next to the sea and this was in front of our van site - a good place to relax while washing out all the Karinjini red dust!

Onslow beach at low tide!

DAMPIER and KARRATHA

We stayed in Karratha as this van park park had a pool and playground and the kids made some friends there - as we left they were setting up a stall next to the playground to sell pieces of 'coal'!!  We also found a fantastic Indian takeaway so gorged on that one day for lunch!

We downloaded the movie 'Red Dog' and watched it all together (with a few tears!) before heading over to Dampier which is on the Burrup Peninsula, separated from Karratha by big salt pans!  Dampier is where Red Dog lived (when he wasn't roaming!) and the Mermaid Hotel, which features in the movie, is still operating.  The Burrup Penninsula is home to the largest collection of rock art in Australia, with over 700 archeological sites.

http://www.pilbaracoast.com/attractions/burrup-peninsula

We love 'Red Dog'!!
Turn off your lights you nong!!  (Jess's favourite line from the movie!)

Gas flares in Dampier

Dampier Harbour - in the middle is Sam's Island with palm trees and a hand-built 'castle' where one man lived with his cat for many years apparently!

Hearson's Cove on the Burrup Peninsula - one of the many places where Aboriginal rock engravings can be found - we looked hard but couldn't find any - I think it helps to have a local direct you!

We found some Kangaroo's though!

 Some locals have a sense of humour - these displays were by the side of the road connecting Karratha to Dampier.

Even old Nessie makes an appearance!

80 Mile Beach and possible disasters averted!

We stayed at a couple of places along 80 mile beach which is just south of Broome - Port Smith and 80 Mile Beach Caravan Park.  We chose Port Smith over Barn Hill station which had been recommended as Phil decided he wanted to try the lagoon fishing and we thought it might be a good place for the kids to swim.  

We had a lovely time practicing our snorkelling in the lagoon while Phil was fishing the outgoing tides. He also had a go at fishing off the nearby cliffs where the water was crystal clear and we saw a couple of massive turtles swimming past.  No luck with the fish at either place!  We got bogged in the thick sand near the cliffs for a short time until Phil dug us out and he has been whinging about wanting a Landcruiser ever since as it has a higher clearance than the Pajero apparently!

We had a fun play with a gorgeous labrador puppy named 'Salty' at the lagoon and then got to pat a baby kangaroo named 'Ollie' that was being hand reared by the managers of the van park.  This was, of course, the highlight for the kids, especially Jess who is animal mad!

Phil has been driven mad by the frequent little voice (Jess) from the backseat saying "Wee Wee" about every 20 minutes at times it seems!  However this did save us from a possible fire in the caravan as we turned off the highway to Port Smith.  As he got out of the car, Phil smelt a funny smell and found it was coming from the passenger side tire on the caravan.  He poured some water on it and it sizzled!!  It kept sizzling for the next half dozen bottles of water and took ages more before it was cool enough to drive again!  Once at the caravan park, Phil took the wheel apart and found it was due to the brake magnets jamming on as they were full of dust.  All good now, but Phil doesn't complain as much about the frequent wee stops!

Love these photos - taken about 3 minutes apart!
I can't remember why we were the worst parents in the world at the time of the first photo but all seems forgotten rather quickly...

Low tide at Port Smith Lagoon

Jack's casting is getting really good!

Another lovely sunset...

Salty the puppy

Cliffs near Port Smith - the water was amazingly clear, we saw huge turtles below

A 'bluey' on the road out

Next we stayed at 80 Mile Beach Caravan Park as we had heard it was a great place to collect shells.   We had a ball doing this and Jack got really into it so we will have to figure out how to best display them when we get to Canberra.

The beach is the other side of the sand dunes at the top of the picture....

The kids made some friends there as it was WA school holidays and Riley's family had brought their own quad bikes from Broome to ride on the beach and they let the kids have a go which they thought was great!  There was also a group of locals at the van park that have their quad bikes all set up with fishing rods, esky's and flags which they take down to the beach to fish the incoming tides.  It's hilarious, they all drive out within about 10 minutes of each other each day and then line up on the beach!

Jess with Riley on his quad bike

Oh no - a shark!  

What can I say....

Stunning!!!

Some of our shells!

Whale bones...

Just a tad larger than our vertebrae!!

Ahhh... Cape Leveque

Wow is all I can say!  We had heard it was beautiful and a must see, but Cape Leveque is one of those places you need to see yourself to believe how lovely it is!  We were extremely lucky to get a cancellation for one of the beach huts at Kooljaman, a camp run by the local Indigenous people.  They do have a campground where you can't take a caravan, but can take a tent, campertrailer or campervan.     It's situated right on the point, with the campgrounds on the western side and the beach huts and log cabins on the eastern side.

Leveque Island

We went and got a shade tent and blow up mattress from Bunnings in Broome and set off up the 'red' dirt road which lasted for 90km and ended at Beagle Bay where there was a famous church with the altar and other decorations made of pearl shells.

http://www.broomediocese.org/beaglebay.html

A labour of love....

We were then pleasantly surprised to find that the last 90km was tarmac which ended at this lovely reception area and cafe.

http://www.kooljaman.com.au

Over the hill and around the corner was our beach shack 'Gnibe' - it's the first one and we think the best as it's right at the start of the cliffs facing away from the next shack so you had nothing to obstruct your view and felt quite isolated.  All we had to do was clamber down the rocks and were on a gorgeous beach!

 

View from the beach

Inside the shack!  Just to the left was a cold water shower  which was actually quite warm!  
A toilet and hot shower was just a short walk away and cooking was done on the fire just in front of the shack.

View to the right...

View to the left...

Jack was very keen on helping with the cooking - I wonder why???

Sunrise - guess who was up first?!

Not a bad view to wake up to!!

Jack and Jess were first on the beach!

We're ready to go fishing Dad!

What a spot!

Using the awning on the car for shade!

My sort of sea - a crystal clear lagoon!

Playing on the rocks...

On the western side the cliffs were a bright red colour - an amazing difference!

Who is this gorgeous girl?!

 It was wonderful to watch the humpback whales while eating breakfast! We got to see a whole lot more of them later in Exmouth.