20th September 2014 – Clear skies, Warm/Hot 36c De Grey River – Pt Hedland

You really feel the 36c if you are in the sun,  in the shade it is comfortable and does not feel like that temperature.  There is no humidity or any that we are noticing.  We came into the De Grey River camp late in the afternoon, tired, and really didn’t check out the camp well enough.  As we were only staying the one night where we camped really didn’t matter.  Glen went for a walk and down by the river there were wonderful camp spots in deep shade, under gums (not good – drop branches too readily, especially in the heat) and water – although there was a crocodile warning in the top camp.  We thought, damm…  but it was very close to the bridge and road and it would be noisy and I don’t think I would enjoy that for a couple of days. 

  The tyre monitoring system has paid for itself. There are special valves on all 6 of the tyres and the pressure is constantly checked and if the pressure drops we get a warning from the main module. This morning the monitor warned of a drop in pressure of the RHR tyre, we would have not noticed and driven on it.  We had picked up a nail and it had been there for a while as the top was shiny, however we also had put in a self sealing additive (prior to starting the trip) which obviously sealed where the nail went in.  So our itinerary for the morning was changed to finding a tyre repair shop to fix the tyre before lunch in Port Hedland. This would be our very first tyre repair on the patrol since new and we have travelled 250,000 kms over some very rough road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camp Ground Visitors -If these guys look big, they are nothing compared to the ones who were thinking of having a go at Barnett Gorge, who were twice as big.

The road heading towards Port Hedland

This is a mining town, there is mining accommodation and the airport.  Most of the vehicles on the road apart from caravanners are white utes with yellow neon side stripes, or road trains with four trailers.  There are literally hundreds possibly a thousand of these utes everywhere!  What do the people who drive around in these utes do? From the number of utes, it must be FIFO.  There is one small shopping centre with a Woolworths, so that is my assumption that all of these workers do not live here.

 Massive trains with kilometres of ore wagons with back up engines linked in the middle for extra power to move it all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These weld artwork statues were at the entrance to BHP Billiton offices, with lovely garden landscaping.  You can see that they are the major player out here.  They were life size.

They do tours and this looks like a machinery exhibit.

 

 

 

 

 

The port entrance and a ship (yes it’s going to China) being loaded.  The entrance is quite narrow, so we wondered how they turned around such large ships.

We found a tyre repair shop, courtesy of the information centre and they repaired the type while we waited.  We were lucky as most business close by lunch time in Port Hedland.  The main part of the town was almost void of people.  I am still fascinated as to where they all are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a nice park near the information centre which overlooks the harbour.

We went to Pretty Pools for lunch.  This is the name of the creek and also the suburb.  Lack of shade was a big problem, so out came the car awning. There was a park with shady trees but no where close to park the car. There are a lot of new homes out at Pretty Pools.  The main area of Pt Hedland is mostly older homes.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The salt farm and evaporation ponds.  If you like salt, this is the place for you.

We had quite a drive around Pt Hedland, got our tyre fixed, did some top up shopping, refuelled.  We arrived around 9am and left around 3pm.  We drove about 20 kms past our turnoff for Karijini NP to camp at Herbert Parker Rest Area (Yule River) Camp Spot.  The sign is well hidden off the highway and only that we had it marked on live tracker, we found the turn off.  Needless to say there was only a bus in the camp spot, right beside the highway.  We found a track heading downstream and drove about a kilometre from the highway and found a lovely level grassed area under paperbarks to camp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have it to ourselves, lovely shady and quiet, so a second night is planned.

Camp cattle again, this one has twins by the look of it.  One complained to us that we had set up in their regular track to the water.  She could not understand why the path was blocked but in the end decided that we were not going to move so she would go around.