After a night at DeGrey River Rest Area we headed into Port Hedland and stayed 3 nights at the golf club - due to being so busy this year there have been changes made . Max stay is now 3 nights , all sites are marked out , no-one is up the back anymore , backpackers are not allowed . We got a powered site and did 3 or 4 loads of washing and caught up with Gary & Linda again - 3 days disappeared rapidly , so we moved to the racecourse , where you can stay for 3 nights no charge . We stayed for a couple of nights .
So here we go , driving out to Finucane Island , which is on the western side of the port , and checked out the BHP Tug Pen - have a go at the size of these tug boats , compared to the large twin engined boat parked beside it !!
We watched this train as it was being unloaded . BHP has two sides of the port for loading their iron ore , trains deliver to both sides and they've also got a tunnel underneath the harbour to transport the ore to the western side as well !!
They usually empty 3 of these carriages at a time , they have a machine that spins the carriages over and empties them out without uncoupling them , then it pushes the whole train along and does the next 3 etc etc untill it's all empty ! There's 134 carriages in a rake , and 2 rakes makes up the whole train , 2 engines per rake , and there's one train every hour !! Each carriage carries approx 125 tonnes , so 125 x 134 x 2 = 33,500 tonnes , that's a lot or rock !! and a lot of money !!
There are 2 holding area's for the ships waiting to enter port - one is about 40klms out and ships basically quarantine there before coming to the closer anchorage - there can be 40 ships waiting to come into port that have already done their 14 days at the outside anchorage .
This ship was going to FMG's loader , FMG tugs were bringing it in , and just for some comparison a fishing boat went zooming past .
A day or 2 later we did the Seafarers Tour of the harbour , and learnt a lot more about the operations of the port . BHP has 8 berths , FMG has 5 berths and Gina Reinhardt has 2 berths , and the Port Authority has 4 berths - one of which is used for the loading of salt , the other 3 are general cargo and fuel .
The loading process is interesting , the boats have either 5 or 7 holds and they are filled separately to balance the boat out - there's not a lot of clearance under the boats and they have to be balanced . Surveyors are used in the loading process to make sure the boat has been loaded level , so it's not leaning one way or the other .
Here's a loader in action - that's about one tonne every second !!
This boat is full and waiting on it's scheduled departure time at high tide .
We picked up this port worker off one of the ships as we cruised round .
This is BHP's conveyor system - the ore comes via conveyor to this distribution point to the loaders up & down the dock .
This loader was being refurbished - probably only loaded a couple of trillion tonnes of ore !!
This is the salt loader .
There is talk of the port being expanded . BHP , FMG and Gina will all have 2 more berths . Gina's loaders are currently faster than the other 2 companies because they are newer and faster to load . The Port Authority will also have a new larger dock & storage area for all the large mining equipment that is coming into port - that way it won't have to be transported through town , it can go straight out onto the highway and down to the new mines .
We drove out next day to Pretty Pool - an area of Port Hedland used for housing - funny having something called Pretty in Port Hedland ! This is the tidal pools below Pretty Pool's park - it's low tide .
From there we headed out to Gray Rd , which runs beside Rio Tinto's Salt farm , and goes out to 6 Mile Creek . If you look in the next photo you can see a triple road train bringing salt to the processing area - every time we've been here there's usually a lot more salt stockpiled .
With the tide being out , there were a lot of sand banks revealed , made for some good photo's .
This is looking back toward Pretty Pool and the port in the background .
Salt in various stages of production .
And again
The colours created are pretty cool as well .
And there you have it , we're heading west tomorrow for 3 nights at the next destination .
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