Just south of Broome we stayed at Port Smith Lagoon. Like a lot of places up this way there’s a drive in along a corrugated red sandy road – about 25Km for this one. The lagoon gave us the opportunity to inflate and launch our canoe, the first time since leaving home – most places we were too worried about something eating us! The lagoon had a big tide. High tide and it was up to the first car park. Low tide and you drove out about 500 metres to the water. I managed to catch a few fish there – some flathead, golden trevally and a small Moses snapper. One day we drove to Saddle Hill Cliffs. The cliffs were white and the ocean was an incredible colour – the water in close was so blue it looked like it was glowing.
Port Hedland is a very busy iron ore (and some other minerals) export town. We took a sunset industrial tour and the numbers the guide came out with were amazing! At one stage he counted 63 iron ore carriers offshore waiting to be loaded. The ships draw 20 metres of water when fully loaded but there’s only 250mm under the hull when leaving port. The trains which are almost constant are 2.8Km long, have 260 trucks and 4 locomotives. All of the operations from unloading of the trucks, to creating the piles ready for loading on the ships are controlled remotely from Perth. With prices at around $US130/tonne that’s a lot of money! The State government only gets 26c/tonne and the Feds get company tax and nothing from royalties.
We had one of our best camps at Karajini National Park. We were at Dales Campground at the western end of the park. After visiting the Information centre we thought we’d take the dirt road to Weano Gorge at the other end of the park. After travelling a small distance on the dirt road road we wimped out, turned around and took the long drive on the tar. Even then the last 13Km into Weano Gorge was on one of the worst corrugated roads we’ve been on so far this trip. Oxer Lookout gave us views of Weano, Red, Joffre and Hancock gorges. After that we descended into Weano Gorge for a walk and popped out at the other end. Jude got to have her Matsos Mango beer at the Eco Resort before the long drive back to camp.
Next day it was a walk along Dales Gorge to the Circular Pool lookout and then back to Fortescue Falls. That night we had another astronomy evening with Remtrek Astronomy who were set up at the campground. A very entertaining evening with some spectacular viewing of Saturn and Jupiter through the Dobsonian telescopes.
Next stop – Exmouth!
Ross Plant
31 Aug 2021Enjoying the blog and photos. We also drove to the other end of the park but returned the same way and yes I agree the corrugations were shocking. Tyres were down to about 20psi. We enjoyed iced coffees at the Eco Resort
ian.rose
31 Aug 2021Yes, it was the worst we’ve been on this trip.
Deb
31 Aug 2021Fabulous photos Ian 👌 Surely the road wasn’t as bad as getting into Lorella!!? 😅
ian.rose
31 Aug 2021Thanks Deb and yes it was bad. No van on either!
Chas
2 Sep 2021… a lot of iron ore in dem dah hills !!!!
ian.rose
2 Sep 2021Yes, I don’t think we’re going to run out of it any time soon!