Exploring the Pilbara Region

Hi everyone.  Hope you are all well and that the weather is warming up where you are. 

Brian and Joy, Bruce and Vicki, Cathy and Mum and Tom – thanks for your comments on the last blog. We have left a short reply on the last blog entry.

We have now left the Kimberley Region and are now in the Pilbara.  The weather has been terrific with the days in the mid to high 30s and the evenings cooling enough to pull the doona up.

Here is what we have been up to since our last entry:

7 to 11 October (day 202 to 206)
Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park, WA

We left Barn Hill looking forward to our next coastal stop about 150km down the Great Northern Highway.  I was a bit sad to be leaving Rose the dog at Barn Hill.  After spending 3 days and nights attached to us she saw us packing up and took off.  She did come to say goodbye but by the time we were driving out she was underneath someone else’s van.

Eighty Mile Beach is actually 220kms long and extends from Cape Missiessy in the north to Cape Keraurdren in the south.  Apart from a few cattle stations along the coastline the caravan park is it.  The park is nestled just behind the sand dunes.  As we arrived we were greeted with a view of the bright aqua blue ocean like you see in advertising material for island getaways.

The beach experiences tide variations of up to 7metres.  At low tide you have to walk about 1km to reach the water while at high tide the water is only about 50 metres away.  The sand is quite muddy so at high tide the first 30 metres or so looks very milky (a bit like soy milk) as the waves churn up the white/grey mud. 

Here are photos taken from the same spot of the beach at low and high tide:

 Unfortunately you can’t swim on the beach as there are lots of sharks and stingrays.  The main attraction of Eighty Mile is the fishing.

 Because the water is so far out at low tide and the fish tend to come in with the tide all the fishing is done around high tide.  It was really funny to watch everyone in the caravan park (including us of course) walk down to the beach at the same time each day (about 2 hours before high tide) and return about an hour after high tide.  The main catch is Threadfin Salmon – Bluenose and Giant.  We caught 16 Bluenose (30 to 45cm) during the time we were there (8 each).  We kept enough for a few meals and were surprised at how nice it was. 

Here is a photo of our catch on the first day:

While we were fishing we saw heaps of sharks as they come within a few metres of the beach.  We also saw quite a few sharks being caught and many people kept them to eat.

We drove down the beach on one morning and saw heaps of turtle tracks and nests.  The female turtles come up the beach during the night at high tide, dig a nest and lay their eggs and then return.  Here is a photo of a turtle track leading to the nest:

We only ventured about 10kms down the beach as it started to get very soft and muddy.  When we first arrived we were shown photos of a 4WD that had become bogged at low tide a few days previously.  The car remained there for a few days being covered by the high tide before someone was able to successfully pull it out.

I couldn’t leave out a photo of the sunset:

 

11 to 13 October (day 206 to 208)
Cooke Point Caravan Park, Port Hedland, WA

Our next stop was Port Hedland as we had booked our car in for the 40,000km service.  Port Hedland is a mining town with BHP Billiton mining for Iron Ore in the region and shipping it to destinations in Australia and overseas from the port.  Rio Tinto also produce salt here through process of evaporating salt water in large pools and retaining the salt that it left behind.  There are 2 large ‘salt mountains’ where they store the salt until it is shipped out.

Its not a very attractive town.  I think it is like a very large Port Kembla.  Its very dry and everything is a reddish-brown colour including the homes and the 2 small shopping centres.  On the way in we saw a train that was over 2kms long. 

Most vehicles on the road belong to the mining companies and just about every driveway had a mine vehicle in the driveway.  We couldn’t believe that rental properties range from $500 per week for a 1 bedroom flat to $2000 for a 4 bedroom house.  Someone told us that the mines are paying about $150,000 per year for a labourer with no experience.

Despite not being very attractive at night the lights from the mine created a really lovely scene.  I had a hard time capturing it on the camera but this photo gives you an idea.

We rode our bikes along the waterfront back to the caravan park after we had dropped our car off to be serviced.  On the way back I (very embarrassingly) fell off my bike.  Fortunately I fell into the red/brown dirt so it was a soft fall but I did end up covered in the dirt and had a very sore neck for a couple of days.

13 to 15 October (day 208 to 210)
Dales Campground, Karijini National Park, WA

After leaving Port Hedland we headed inland to Karijini National Park.  The national park includes the Hamersley Range and a number of gorges that were over millions of years old.  There are a number of walks along the top of the gorges and down into and along the gorge floors.  The walks are graded from class 2 to 6.  We did a number of the walks up to class 4 as the more challenging walks require ‘advanced outdoor knowledge’ and frankly looked pretty scary.  I thought my confidence would have increased with all of the bushwalking we have done but I am still a bit of a chicken.

The highlight was a walk we did through Dales Gorge.  We walked down a steep slope to the floor of the gorge and then to the Circular Pool at one end of the gorge.  The pool has been created at the end of the gorge by water, creating a very high round wall.  Water seeps through the rocks into the pool at the bottom.  We then walked to Fortescue Falls and Fern Pool at the other end of the gorge.  We also walked along the rim of Dales Gorge, stopping at several lookouts to see the base of the gorge and Circular Pool from the top. We also walked down to the base of Weano Gorge but decided not to walk along the base as you had to wade through water that looked quite deep.

We also visited lookouts overlooking Joffre, Knox and Hancock Gorges.

Here is some photos.

This is Dales Gorge (from the top)

This is the view of Circular Pool from the top of the Gorge

This is Circular Pool 

This is the view ‘up’ from Circular Pool

This is Fortescue Falls

This is the view from the lookout into Joffre Gorge

We were surprised at how large the campground was.  It has several sections and probably has over 100 campsites. It was basic camping with only pit toilets provided. It is so busy that they always have two sets of campsite hosts who worked 2 days on and 2 days off.  The campsite hosts are volunteers who collect the camping fees and deal with any problems.   

 

15 to 17 October (day 210 to 212)
Tom Price Tourist Park, Tom Price, WA

We hadn’t planned to stop at Tom Price but changed our mind as we heard it was very nice and well worth visiting.

Tom Price is the highest town in Western Australia.  Its another mining town but the town itself is quite pretty.  Unfortunately there was a fire in the ranges around the town earlier in the week so large patches of the countryside are now black and still smouldering as we drove from Karijini.

Apart from having a look around the town (which is very small – population 4,200) we drove up Mt Nameless.  This is the highest mountain in WA that is accessible by 4WD.  From the top we had great views (although a bit hazy as a result of the recent fires) across the Hamersley Range and over the mine. 

Here we are on our way up Mt Nameless.  You may notice that we don’t have any rear lights on the passenger side.  We lost the lights somewhere in Karijini NP and have ordered a new set that we will collect in Karratha.

View over the range:

 This is a very hazy view of the mine:

There is a resident kangaroo at the caravan park who lazes under the trees all day and is quite happy for people to approach him.

 Here he is rolling over:

Tomorrow we travel to Millstream Chichester National Park before returning to the coast.  We are planning to stay at a little place called Port Samson which is about 50kms north of Karratha.