Back on the road today , we say goodbye to Karratha reluctantly , some people have told us don’t bother - there’s nothing to do or see there - we couldn’t disagree any more !!! The scenery is stunning , harsh maybe , but absolutely stunning , very industrial in parts , but more than makes up for that in other areas . There are the pristine beaches covered in sea shells of all sizes & shapes , the chocolate brown , red & orange rock covered mountains and the big blue skies ( when it wasn’t raining or overcast hahaha ).
We had a leisurely pack up and drove out the gate at 9:50am , out to the highway and headed north . Bit of a headwind to contend with , but nothing we cant handle .
Arriving at our destination for the night , and it wasn’t even 10:30am , pulling in to the park at Roebourne . Set up and lunch packed , we headed for Harding Dam .
The gravel road took us across flat plains covered in spinifex and small stunted trees , everything looked good , the recent rains greening everything up .
There are sporadic outcrops of white quartz up here , looking good against the red & green colours .
Further up the road we met up with the railway line that goes from Port Lambert loading facility to Tom Price and a number of other iron ore mines . In the background are the drk red / brown rocky hills with ribbons of spinifex running up them .
We had to cross over the railway a couple of times , and had to wait for a train full of empty carriages to pass , there are a lot of carriages !!
Arriving at the dam , we drove along beside the dam wall and up to the spillway lookout . The views were over the spillway and around to the dam wall - 360 degrees .
In the spinifex beside the path , we noticed a little vine with small yellow flowers - probably the perfect protection in the spiky spinifex .
Down to the dam wall and a walk across to the other side , something you can't do at a lot of dams now . There are no fences guarding the edge of the dam wall , nothing to stop you falling over , or climbing down the dam wall . The rocky slopes going into the water showed the normal water mark .
Back down to the picnic area for lunch , there were some Spoonbill Ibis in the trees on the opposite side of the river .
The termites here musn’t like the ground , you can see their galleries running up the trunk and branches .
The dam wall isn’t really high , but fills the valley nicely .
Back to Roebourne to check out some of the old buildings in town , this complex was the Roebourne Regional Prison , Courthouse and accomodation . Then there’s the Post Office dating back to 1887 .
Then it was up to Mt Welcome and the lookout , they have some very clever statues up there of aboriginals with their spears , standing watch over town .
There were some traffic delays while we were up there - there were a couple of train locomotives coming from Port Lambert on 2 huge trailers - each trailer had a prime mover in front pulling and one behind pushing !! They had lots of escort vehicles to close the road down on narrow bridges and narrow sections of the highway , to allow safe passage of the vehicles ( hopefully )!!
That’s it for today , here’s a map link :-https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zhupwAILyIMtpC1oTV0LPFb1FCs&usp=sharing
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