Today was an easy day in Port Hedland as planned. However it started off a little frustrating. You see I checked my tyres and there was damage to the rear one that had to be dealt with.
So early morning I headed into town and found a bike place, a Yamaha dealer, who had a range of tyres but not my bike’s size. So they can order them in (from Perth) but that will take 24 hrs to arrive. By that time they will be closed for the weekend and so I have to wait until Monday to get them fitted. I decided to replace both tyres, so I am here for the weekend.
Frustrating as had this been in Broome I could have spent the weekend on Cable Beach, but no I have to be in PH. Well it could have been worse I could be in the middle of nowhere waiting for Road Side Assist. I count my blessings and have a weekend to kill.
This morning I was booked on a tour of BHP Billiton Iron Ore complex here at Port Hedland. It finished up being only a bus tour inside the plant, but we were able to see the handling of the ore from time of arrival by train, through the stock piles and loading to the ship.
Lots of facts and figures to impress and big expansion plans for the place. They currently export around 100 odd million tonnes and this is planned to go to 400+ million tonnes by 2015. The township is only about 18,000 people with projections to 40,000 odd. All I can say they had better address the housing issue and soon.
Other companies export products through the port including manganese, salt, copper and cattle. Iron ore is definitely the major resource, primarily exported, but today there were two local Australian ships in port (highly unusual).
After the tour I went down to the harbour to watch 4 tugs bring a huge 300,000 tonne bulk carrier into port – very impressive positioning. Some of the caravan drivers could take note of the precision, because I have seen some woeful attempts in that department.
This afternoon I stripped the armour from my riding gear and gave them another tub. Spoke to a number of other campers and caught up with a few that I met a week or so back, All in all a restful day, now for tomorrow.
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