South of Broome

Finally found some decent internet in Exmouth today. 

Six days missed since I posted from Broome so I’ll just identify the real highlights since then.

Broome to Pardoo Roadhouse.   I consulted our travel directory to remind me of that trip to find that Jill had annotated the page “Boring” !  We skirted the edge of the Great Sandy Desert, the second largest of Australia’s deserts at more than 260,000 sq. km.  It is the desert that the great Canning Stock Route crosses. Pioneered by Canning in 1906, it remains to this day the longest and most remote stock route on the planet. It is now a popular but challenging 4WD trail for hard core enthusiasts.  It is also home to lots and lots of camels!  First brought to Australia in the 1840s for desert exploration and later for use in the goldfields, the population of feral camels exploded in the 1920s and 1930s as domestic animals were released into the wild.  Despite a cull in 2014 when 160,000 were shot to relieve pressure on pastoral stations, there are still an estimated 300,000 feral camels in Australia, the only substantial feral population  in the world.  We ate in the roadhouse that night and soaked up some of the local “culture”.

Port Hedland.  Only a 150 km that day from Pardoo Roadhouse to Port Hedland.  (that was a treat).  I had been looking forward to this stop and it didn’t disappoint.   Coming into town we were stopped at a rail crossing by a very long (3 km) ore train.  While I was photographing this spectacle, Jill was diligently counting the ore trucks.  294 !  This place is a town of long trains, big ships, iron ore and salt mountains.  Port Hedland is one of the world’s largest and busiest harbours.  Operations like this are usually on a city’s outskirts and largely invisible.  Not so here.  In this remote town the town and the port are cheek by jowl and the coming and going of ships from dawn to dusk are part of daily life.

The ore train cars carry around 120 tonnes per car and a train will be around 30,000 tonnes

We watched in awe as ships were loaded off huge conveyer systems, loading an entire 260,000 tonne ship in 24-36 hours.  We saw two of these mammoth ships depart the port  guided by four huge tugs which shepherded them along a 25 km long channel out to the open sea.

Tom Price.

The following day took is 450 km to one of the many, many mines which feed the port with iron ore.  On route we detoured to Karinji NP to explore the Dales Gorge where we descended 294 steel steps to the base of the Gorge and gorgeous pools.

Tom Price is the name of both the town and the Rio Tinto mine we visited.  Tom 

Price town is the highest town in WA at 740m.  Goodness we nearly needed oxygen.  And the “mountain” behind the town was another 200m higher!!  

We are now in the heart of the Pilbara region which, we are told, is the richest iron ore area in the world.  It was only about 60 years ago that high grade ore was discovered in this area which put the Pilbara region on the world map.

The mine tour was a continual bombardment of superlatives and quite overwhelming really. The Tom Price pit was impressive, but there were another four pits further out, putting out a combined total of nearly 400,000 tonnes per year. The machinery was mind boggling.

Dump trucks: $4.5 million, 240 tonne capacity, tyres worth $65,000 each, fuel capacity  4500lts

Shovels:  $7m  bucket weight 28.5 tonnes, bucket capacity 21 cubic metres

No photos yet, I’m sorry. Adapter for iPad appears to be faulty. Can’t find a Noel Leeming or even a Harvey Norman, or even a computer shop. May be tomorrow!!!