The Pilbara

We are now in the land of mining, money and red rocks - and red dust! It’s certainly an eye opener to see and learn of the huge projects being undertaken in this area. Two thirds of every vehicle on the roads are mining connected and the go-to dress code is high vis yellow or orange! This area’s wealth is in  salt, iron ore, and gas.  Our first town of Onslow was surprising as it’s a small town with big projects in the pipeline - a new resort and caravan park. The road works coming into Onslow are an indication of the vastness of the new iron ore mine - I believe to be one of the largest to be undertaken, with roads suitable for autonomous trucks. Our stay in the caravan park there was very pleasant and we all enjoyed the soft fake grass underfoot as a change to dirt. They have a lovely board walk heralded by this magnificent war memorial.

We visited the old Onslow town which was relocated to the new site 20 km away in 1925, when the river silted and a port wasn’t accessible. All that remains are some stone remnants as all the wooden buildings were physically moved by horse and dray. The nearby Ashburton River is a very popular camping spot as it’s very picturesque with lovely big gum trees. 

Dennis’s kitchen opened up again, this time producing a lemon tea cake, served warm with cream! We wait to see what’s next on the menu! 

West Australia provides excellent free camping spots along their main roads and we enjoyed a lovely peaceful evening along side the almost dry Robe River, with some cows as our companions. 

We are now in Dampier and it’s obligatory to visit the Red Dog statue and recall the story of this special dog. We had wonderful views of the area with the mountains of salt in the distance.

Nearby Karratha is another surprise as it’s a city of some 25,000 people, and is very tidy and neatly set out. We had another excellent panoramic view of the town.

The visitor centre was very helpful in advising us what to see and in search of a fish & chips lunch, we ended up at Point Samson at a lovely spot over looking a pretty bay with ships lined up, waiting to be loaded with iron ore at Cape Lambert.

The vastness and complexities of the gas industry is overwhelming and quite frankly hard to comprehend but they are so successful, Woodside is building a new plant to complement the existing huge plant. At the visitor information centre, we saw the whole process from initial exploration to the refining and exporting. 

We are camped near the iron ore loading facility, but strangely there is little action at present - no trains or ships so we wonder if it’s in a maintenance cycle. When they are running, the trains are several kilometres long, bringing the ore in from Newman - quite a sight to see. 

Port Hedland is our next destination and our turn around point, so assume we’ll see more ore exports at the Port.  We  then head to Marble Bar, Tom Price and Karijini. We’ve been 6 weeks on the road and all is going very well. We  can’t believe how fortunate we are to be able to explore this wonderful country of ours. We had a bit of rain here overnight and hope that that expected rains at home eventuate. Love from the travellers ❌❌❌❌