After an evening of star watching and music , we had an indifferent night’s sleep . Slept well for most of the night , till the breeze started to rattle things and make funny noises , then the kookaburras started their noise - they don’t laugh over here like in the eastern states , more like choking !!
People were already packed up and had headed off before we got up at 6:45 , the road noise also increasing , with more road trains coming through .
We ate & hitched up , then hit the road , heading to Port Hedland . Got an interesting surprise when I removed the sun screen from the windscreen - we had a stone chip and with all the heat yesterday , the stone chip turned into a 450mm long crack in the screen from the middle of the passenger side , across to the middle of the drivers side , it also went the other direction about 100mm !!! New windscreen very soon !!!!
After leaving DeGrey River , we found ourselves driving through floodplains , with the odd small hills in the distance . The road was undulating , and would occasionally give us great 360 degree views to the horizon !!! There are more & more mine sites on the way in also .
We could see what looked like sand dunes in the distance , till we got closer and you could make out the conveyor belts - it was salt , not sand - and it is owned by Rio Tinto !!
It is a fair distance in to Port Hedland from the Great Northern Hwy , about 10klms or more !! and as you drive in , you can see the housing & accomodation to the right , and railway to the left - everything has an orange tinge to it !!
We found our way to the Port viewing area and parked in an area big enough for us . A guy came along and told us about a parking area further up the road - turns out we may have been in a bus zone , so we moved !!
The visitor centre was just up the road about 200m , so we went and had a look , went to the post office across the road , then came back to the viewing area as another bulk ore ship was powering into the port with 2 tugboats attached .
While we were doing those few things , they had brought 2 ships in , and there were another 15 anchored further out , waiting for their turn !!
There is a blackboard at the entrance to the visitors centre , that details the ships being loaded , the amount of iron ore they are taking and where to . They were each taking between 250,000 to 300,000 tonnes of ore to either China , Japan or Korea . Here are 2 of them .
We rang to get a site for a night or two , and were lucky enough to get one at Cooke Point , which is far enough away from the port to miss the noise , but close enough to see it .
Port Hedland is an industrial town and looks that way as you approach and drive into it , you drive in adjacent to the railway that transports most of the ore , trains are amazingly long , with 2 engines at the front , middle and end !!
We set up and got 3 days for the price of 2 - bargain , especially seeing the price was $52 a night !!!!
We had lunch , organised our windscreen replacement for tomorrow morning , did the insurance claim and then had a swim & chatted to a few people we have been seeing over & over around the place .
Going to bore you with another sunset , there is a water tank in the middle of the photo.
Todays map link :- https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z1G8gwwxwyYo.kOFelSD0jXWE&usp=sharing
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