WEST AUSTRALIAN MINERAL WEALTH

In my last blog we had just arrived in Port Hedland and I said it looked an interesting town. Well it certainly was that. It has a population of just over 14,000 and 80% of those who work are employed by BHP Biliton. The houses all have orange/red roofs and walls but these are not painted this colour, it is the result of the iron dust that permeates the whole town. Initially the iron ore was freighted by rail from the mines in Newman, a new town 426 kms. away, and crushed on the site at Port Hedland, but it is now crushed in Newman and railed to Port Hedland where it is stockpiled before being sent overseas. The iron dust covers everything and even though all the new houses have white or silver roofs when they are built, within a couple of years, they will all just be covered with iron dust. It’s a waste of time cleaning cars, caravans etc.
We went on a tour of the BHP facility in Port Hedland and the size is amazing. A typical iron ore train travelling from Newman will have 6 locomotives pulling 336 wagons carrying more than 42,000 tonnes of ore. These trains are up to 3.75kms long so you don’t want to meet one at a railway crossing I can assure you! BHP operate 12 loaded and unloaded trains every day of the year. The biggest train ever had 632 wagons and was 7.35 kms. long. That was a world record. The ore is then shipped overseas, mainly to China, from the wharf in Port Hedland. At the moment the wharf will only accommodate 4 ships at a time but plans are underway to allow another 6 ships to load at the same time. Most ships take about 30 hours to load and there are always about 12 – 20 ships sitting offshore waiting to berth. Port Hedland ships 100 million tonnes of iron ore a year.
There is another huge mining complex in the Pilbara area of north western Australia at Tom Price. This is a mining town of about 5,000 people. It reminded us of Twizel with its shopping mall and everything tidy and neat. The mine is about 5kms. from the centre of town and all the single workers and fifos (workers who fly in, work for 3 weeks, then fly out for a week) are stationed in quarters out by the mine but all the families are housed in the town. This complex is run by Rio Tinto and all their ore is railed to Port Dampier about 600kms. south of Port Hedland. The Pilbara region supplies 34% of the world’s sea-borne iron ore trade. As you can see the resources in this area of Australia are mind blowing with reserves for another 30 years.
The wages paid to the mine workers are among the highest paid in Australia but there are some side issues that are contributing to other problems in these mining towns. There is a serious shortage of housing, especially in Port Hedland, and the rental asked for an ordinary 2 – 3 bedroom house in the area is $1500 - $2000 per week! Temperatures in the summer rise to+40C so the air conditioning costs can add another $1500 per month, depending how much time is spent in the house. The mine workers can afford these rentals and sometimes have them included in their wage package deal, but the locals who work in the shops etc. and don’t get paid the high wages, can’t afford these high rentals. As I stated at the beginning, Port Hedland is a very interesting town!
We then went bush for 3 nights in Karajini National Park. This is the second largest national park in WA and consists of lots of amazing gorges. The land above is just normal bush country with Spinifex everywhere and you wouldn’t know these gorges are even there. They all require a measure of fitness to get down into such as vertical ladders, rock walls etc. but when you get down, the scenery is amazing. There are about 7 gorges in the park with differing levels of fitness required. We never attempted the more difficult ones as they require river crossing and rock climbing up vertical walls. We watched 2 girls attempting it; one girl was fairly competent and confident but her friend was totally out of her depth. We were watching them from a lookout and my heart was in my mouth as I was sure they were going to plunge into the river below. The more confident of the two finally made it on her own but it was pretty nerve wracking watching I can tell you. There is no water or power in these bush camps but they are very popular; so popular in fact that in peak times people are queuing in their vans and campers waiting for people to leave so they can get a site. We had a lovely time in there and it was while we were there that we drove to Tom Price for a day trip. There is a fantastic lookout from Mount Nameless in Tom Price that overlooks the mines. The road to this lookout is 4WD only and is the highest accessible road in WA at 1128 metres. While we were up there we heard a huge explosion. It was a planned detonation and we caught it on camera. Very exciting.
Our next stop was Roebourne. The camp was pretty basic but it was a great base from which to explore the area. Roebourne is the oldest town in WA and looks it! These little towns try very hard to hang onto their identities and Roebourne had an old gaol; post office and a sobering up centre! Further out on the coast is Point Samson, where there are lovely beaches, and another old ghost town called Cossack. Cossack has kept a lot of its old existing buildings but though no-one lives there, the town has lots of visitors. It was here that we finally saw “Staircase to the Moon” . This is an illusion created by a full moon rising over mudflats on a low tide. The effect is breath taking and creates the illusion of a staircase leading to the moon. It can be seen at a few places around the top west coast of WA, especially at Broome but the moon wasn’t right when we were there. There were hundreds of people at the lookout in Cossack about 7.30pm waiting for this sight. Some had bought dinner, wine etc. so it was a real party atmosphere.
We visited Karratha and Dampier when we were in Roebourne. Karratha is a growing town which is now the hub of the Pilbara. Dampier was something else. This town houses port facilities for salt, iron, petroleum, fertilisers, niclel, copper, ammonia and sea foods and is now the highest export port in Australia. It is a very pretty town with sheltered beaches, brilliant sunsets, etc. and is the gateway to the Dampier Archipelago so there are lots of water recreation activities. We visited the visitors centre of North West Shelf Venture which is Australia’s largest oil and gas resource development. This venture supplies oil and gas to Australia; 65% of Western Australia’s domestic gas supply and international markets from gas and condensate fields located about 130km off the coast. We could see some of these rigs from the
shore.. If Asia ever suffers from a very serious recession, I don’t know how Australia would cope, but at the moment they are living the life of Reilly!
We are now in Exmouth at the top of Cape Range National Park and surrounded by
the Ningaloo Reef. There are some of the most beautiful beaches we have seen in this area and the waters within the reef are a real turquoise. We had a day out there yesterday and there were lots of snorkellers. The fish come right up to the shore and can be viewed just by paddling out. On our trip yesterday we saw about a dozen emus; lots of kangaroos, an echidna and an osprey with her nest and chicks on the top of a power pole.. Not bad for a day out eh!
I thought that once we had got past Broome the camps would not be so busy. How wrong I was. They have got busier. We are having to book at least a fortnight ahead now which is a real drag as we can’t get the number of nights we want in some places and in others we can’t get in at all. We had planned 4 nights in Coral Bay but no sites are available there until at least 10th August so we are going to have a farm stay and visit it on day trips. I think we are now in the group of Perth people who have had 3 months in Broome for the winter and are now on the homeward trek. The distances to travel between towns is beyond belief to most New Zealanders. Between Broome and Karratha it is 690 kms and between Karratha and Exmouth over 600kms. There are no towns, and I mean nothing, in between these places so we just have to stay over in roadside parks along the way with about another 20 or so caravans as it is too far to travel in one day with the van. It also means you have to keep an eye on your petrol as there are only limited places to fill up on the way.
The west oast of Australia is very prone to cyclones and all towns down the coast show photos of previous damage done. None of the houses on this coast have spoutings as they wouldn’t be able to hold the water and also because of the high winds. Port Hedland seems to be one of the more cyclone prone areas with one at least every 3 – 5 years and when you see all the growth in this area, it must give cause for concern.
WA is well known for its wild flowers and we are now starting to see signs of them on the roadsides. The most famous of these is the Sturt Desert Pea, a beautiful bright red flower that just grows wild but we will see lots more of them as we head south toward Perth. There were some photos of them on TV recently and we should see hills covered in wild flowers within the next few weeks. Looking forward to that.
We should be only a few weeks from Perth in my next blog. We are going to catch up with friends we met on the road last year and friends from New Zealand while we are there so, depending on availability of sites, we hope to spend about 2 weeks in Perth.