Day 48 – Thu, 26 Aug to Port Hedland

I posted Day 47 earlier today.

I went to bed early last night and the wind was blowing a little, with the rustle of the trees and the sounds of the night I had a great night sleep. I woke early and watched the sun rise as I had breakfast. That was the end of the pleasant morning at Pardoo Station.

Pardoo Station is around 500,000 acres and runs about 6,000 Santa Gertrudis cattle. I believe the camp also house local mining staff or contractors in the donga type accommodation.

The grounds were devoid of grass, except the communal areas, and the wind strengthened and the dust blew and I decided I would hit the road. I was going to take a trip down to the beach (at least another 5km ride) then a walk. The dust was up so I thought, nope lets get back on the road.

So basically I missed the coast from Broome down to Port Hedland – I did cross the De Grey River which was one of the original stations in the area, originally including Pardoo Station. 

Pardoo Station had been recommended and I was let down – I guess actuality didn't meet expectations.  I should have stopped in at 80 Mile Beach, but I was speaking with a women at Port Hedland camp site and she said the wind had been bad there as well.

So a bit disappointing, so I’ll have to come back another time – maybe even get Robyn up here to see the things that I haven’t seen – what a great idea John..lol..

I found the Cooke Point Camp Ground a little expensive, but I have since learnt that all accommodation in PH is expensive. Even a backpacker type accommodation is over $100 a night so my $32 for a camp site is cheap even though it is the dearest on the trip so far. I understand that miners are paying somewhere in the vicinity of $1,000-$2,000 a week for housing.

I had a look around town and the port. For those who don’t know about PH, it is the major port for the export of iron ore for BHP Billiton and salt for Rio Tinto.  The mines are predominantly around Newman to the SE and trains up to 3.5km long bring the ore into the port for export – around 100 million tonnes a year. BHP is planning to expand the port to double the number of ships it can load – currently 4 at a time in excess of 330,000 tonnes each.

The hwy runs to the N with the rail and industry to the E and the housing to the W (closer to the coast). The camp ground is located in the newer part of the residential housing area, where I understand fairly modern, metal clad housing is priced over the $1.5m mark – so much land, so high prices!

Tonight I headed down to the beach to watch the Stairway to the Moon phenomenon. At low tide and on the rise of the full moon, it creates an appearance over the low water pools of a stairway to, you guessed it, the moon. Really lovely to watch, a pity the camera wasn’t good enough to really capture it and a tripod would have helped.

I’ll be staying for another night, so until then stay warm there in old Sydney town.