Roebourne to Dampier

August 20 to August 28

 

Cossack Heritage Village building (and motorhome)

The Roebourne region includes Wickham, Cossack and Point Samson. Roebourne was settled in 1866 for farming, and were celebrating their 150 year anniversary while we were there. Cossack was settled around the same time and was the primary port for agriculture and the centre for pearl divers (before the pearlers all moved to Broome in the late 1800’s). A gold rush fuelled the development, but the departure of the pearlers and collapse of the gold rush turned Cossack into a ghost town by 1910. Still mostly uninhabited, the stone buildings have been restored and are open as a heritage town.

Wickham Display of mining equipment (and motorhome)

Pope's Nose Causeway creating horizontal falls

Wickham was only built in the 1970’s by Robe River Iron Ore and is now the administration and shopping centre for the area. Point Samson is the fishing port and coastal area where we stayed for 2 nights. Very pretty and quiet, but windy. We had been warned that August can be very windy with constant easterlies. They didn’t really arrive until we reached Point Samson, unfortunately restricting my chances to go fishing. The causeway bridge leading to Point Samson operates like a mini horizontal falls, with the 5 metre tides rushing through a narrow opening called The Popes Nose. I’m not sure why it had to be that narrow? As a tourist attraction maybe?

We did experience the Staircase to the Moon, a phenomenon that occurs when a full moon coincides with a low tide at dusk, with the reflection of the moon creating a "stairway" effect on the mud flats. It only happens a few times in winter, and you need a pretty good imagination but it was worth seeing. My photo is ordinary, but some of the images on posters, tee shirts etc. are pretty good.

Staircase to the Moon

Monday we drove 45 kilometres to Karratha. Only established in 1968 to support Hamersley Iron Ore (now Rio Tinto) and the Dampier Salt Mine, it followed the building of Dampier and the town of Tom Price in 1963 by Hamersley Iron after the federal government restriction on exporting iron ore was lifted. From that time when Hamersley had one mine and one Japanese customer, the area now services fifteen iron ore mines, the salt mine, and the nearby Woodside LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) port and processing plant.

The Karratha/Dampier/Burrup Peninsula area is to be seen to be believed. Particularly the very recent and rapid Woodside development of the LNG business, now supporting five (I think) North West Shelf offshore gas drilling rigs. The LNG plant has a great self-guided tour and information centre, the numbers ($34 billion to build, the volume of gas processed, the dollar value to this country) are mind blowing.

20,000 year old Petroglyph rock etchings, Murujuga NP

On top of that, they have the Murujuga National Park at Hearson’s Cove, where some 10,000 petroglyphs (aboriginal rock etchings, as opposed to paintings) are in the ironstone hills of the Deep Gorge area. This fascinating Park looks like mining spoil hills, but are naturally formed “rubble” mountains. The rock formations are all around the area, creating interesting hiking areas like Stove Hill where more petroglyphs, shell middens and other local indigenous history is accessible.

Red Dog Statue, Dampier

We spent a couple of nights in Karratha and three in Dampier (20km away). I hadn’t watched the Red Dog movie (about a red cattle dog, set around Dampier) so the caravan park manager made sure I had a copy to watch the first night. We have realised (as a number of our readers have also pointed out) we are heading south a bit too quickly, so we have decided to stay in the Karratha/Dampier area for another five days as there is plenty to see and do.

Saturday the wind finally dropped off, so we did a sightseeing kayak paddle into Hampton Harbour in Dampier to visit Tidepole Island, also known as Sam’s Island. Sam decided to build a “castle” on the island as Dampier was being developed in the mid 1960’s, and Hamersley Iron granted him a lease to live there. It is now available to day visit (with a permit) by boat or kayak.

I should have taken a fishing rod with me as there were a couple of bait fish schools around the island. If the wind takes another break I’ll paddle out there to try my luck.

Kayak trip to Tidepole (Sam's) Island

Saturday night the Pilbara Regiment Army Base, the barracks are next door to the caravan park, had their annual black tie ball. Unfortunately we didn’t get an invitation, but got to enjoy a bagpipes band, then a live (pretty good!) cover band play through to midnight. It didn’t bother us too much, but I would imagine a few other campers wouldn’t have been too pleased.

Sunday brought the first “rain” we have seen since the Northern Territory. It was only light but coupled with the wind it was a little uncomfortable. It didn’t stop us from getting out, we spent most of the day at Karratha back beach. Not really a beach but a boat ramp and tidal mud flats where people collect “cockle shells” to eat. We chose to harvest oysters from the rocks, a nice entrée before lunch.

Port Hedland to Roebourne via Karijini National Park

August 14 to August 20

Entering the Pilbara Region the road trains became more frequent and the mine vehicles more common. Port Hedland is an impressive town, everything is big! As it has to be as the major port for BHP, Rio and Fortescue for iron ore export. Port Hedland is a big town, the (fairly) recently developed South Hedland has obviously been planned for massive expansion, and the town spreads some 15 kilometres long and wide. Since the mining downturn the development has halted and the housing market has plummeted, but it is now open for travelers again. At the height of the boom a caravan park site (if you could get one) would be $50+ a night all year round.

Rio Tinto's Port Hedland Salt Mine

We chose to stay at the Racecourse, which is open for self-contained vehicles at just $10 a night.

I had booked the motorhome in for a wheel alignment on Monday, and the facility can align wheels for mine trucks. Nice to be almost too small after no one in Broome could do it because I was too big! I also organised an Auto Electrician to sort out the air con switching, and they did it all at the same place. A quick call to their recommended tyre place and I got all three jobs done in the one day.

Fortesque Falls, Dales Gorge in Karijini National Park

Port Hedland is so industrious with the port loading facilities, rail hub and salt mine (in the middle of town) working 24/7, the nights are a continuous hum of industry. We enjoyed walking the foreshore and viewing the port and massive iron ore reclaimers in action, and the salt mine operation. We checked out the mining museum and walked up to the water tower to view the port lights at night. 

On Wednesday we departed Port Hedland to drive south to Karijini National Park. The Park is 350km out of our way, but on everyone’s recommendation we had to go there. Karijini is famed for its gorge systems formed on the Hamersley Range plateau. We reached the Munjina Roadhouse for lunch when the “Andrew tyre valve stem curse” struck again. After a weird run in February in South Australia, and now two days after new tyres, a valve stem failed while we were (fortunately) stationary at the roadhouse at 2pm. We are 280km from Port Hedland and 160km from the town of Tom Price.

Circular Pool, Dales Gorge in Karijini National Park

After much negotiating with the NRMA, the RAC (Western Australia’s roadside assist) sent out a guy from Tom Price at no cost to me, or should I say to the tyre fitter in Port Hedland! Fortunately (always look on the bright side), they sent out a tyre fitter from Tom Price, I had a spare tyre valve stem (wonder why?), and the roadhouse had a “bead breaker” in an old shed. By 5:30pm we had replaced the stem, with the tyre supplier so thankful for getting it sorted (his tyre fitter didn’t replace that valve stem!!??), he paid for the overnight powered site at the roadhouse.

Reflective magic, Karijini National Park

Thursday morning we were off to Karijini National Park, only 60km from the roadhouse (which also had an industrial hum all night from the diesel power generators, we felt right at home). After arranging park passes and a camp site for the night at Dales Gorge, we were off to hike gorges! As we have found everywhere in the North, the poor wet season has not been kind to the gorge attractions. Again we found the waterways very low and the waterfalls dribbling. Much of the attraction of the Karijini gorge systems is the colourful, smooth, eroded sedimentary iron stone formations of the walls. After little rain and the recent (and current) strong winds, the gorges have a general dull, red dust colour.

After sounding a bit negative, we were actually pretty damn impressed! We met a couple the week before in a camp who said they hadn’t said “wow” so much when at Karijini, and I found myself doing the same thing. We (well, Leah did the Grade 3 trails) hiked the whole area throughout the day.

Full moon camping at Karijini National Park

The local indigenous land owners manage the National Park and, like Katherine (Nitmiluk) Gorge, they are doing a great job of making it accessible and reasonably priced. After a very relaxing (and quiet) night we headed back towards Port Hedland to complete the 700km round trip. We camped at Yule River Friday night, some 140km from Roebourne. Saturday we drove to Roebourne then on to Point Samson where we plan to spend a couple of days RnR and catch up on some chores.

Broome to Port Hedland

August 6 to August 14

  

Between Broome and Port Hedland there are no towns, for 600 kilometres! The highway follows the coastline, roughly 10 to 20 kilometres from the beach, and it is along this stretch that a lot of the “Southerners” in Western Australia come for holidays to get away from the cold. Even though WA’s north is very remotely populated, the mining boom has made a real difference to the Kimberly region (and all of WA). In Western QLD and Northern Territory’s large remote regions, you can go hundreds of kilometres without phone coverage, meaning you need a CB radio or satellite phone if you need to communicate. In WA the entire major highway system is covered by Telstra mobile coverage. Amazing!

We decided to first stop at Barn Hill Station, about 140 kilometres south of Broome, a huge working cattle station which spans 85 kilometres of coastline along Roebuck Bay. The 10 km’s of dirt road into Barn Hill was corrugated. Cars and four wheel drives don’t feel corrugates too much, but motorhomes and caravans do.

Rock Formations at Barn Hill (background, not me!!)

The uncomfortable drive was worth it, this basic camp was very well equipped given its remoteness. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and initially booked for two nights.

The coastline with its interesting eroded rock formations was spectacular. A number of campers bring boats to launch from the shore, as the fishing on the reefs a couple of kilometres off shore is very productive. I would have launched the kayak but the sandy, windy, one kilometre track to the beach (the only wheeled access due to the low cliffs) turned me off. I did eventually rig up and tried lure fishing from the beach. I landed a 60cm barracuda on my first outing which was excellent eating. No further success but plenty of exercise.

Barn Hill beach, quiet and spectacular

They do a three course roast dinner on Sunday night, with a local indigenous band (Family Shoveller Band) as entertainment. It’s a BYO affair, BYO chairs, table, drinks, nibblies, cutlery, crockery, everything except the meal. They served 160 odd people, down from more than 300 the week before. The meal was reasonable, the band and entertainment was very good. It was a pleasure to see these talented local artists from a nearby community, all from the same family, entertaining and interacting with the audience the way they did.

Barn Hill Camp, view from our cliff site

We decided to stay another two nights as it was very relaxing and we had secured a cliff-side spot on the second day (and I was in no rush to drive the dirt road out). We are enjoying switching from tourist in the “attraction” type areas like Broome, to holidaymakers when we get the quiet coastal places. Given how cold and wet it is Perth, we are in no rush southward.

Staying at the camp on Census night was easy as the managers were registered collectors, so we had hard copy forms “delivered” and collected from us the next day.

Barn Hill Barracuda

We departed Barn Hill on Wednesday, and drove a couple of hundred kilometres to reach the Sandfire Roadhouse. Given it is the first stop for hundreds of k’s, there isn’t much there except fuel. I would have thought they would have some reasonable groceries and fruit and veg, but not to be.

We had considered stopping at Port Smith as recommended by Bert and Di, but feedback from campers who had just been there told us the midges/sand-flies were horrendous. They had been fogging the camp each night but to no avail.

80 Mile Beach, a lot of people for no fish

We headed to Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park, about 250 kilometres from Barn Hill, highly recommended by many people. Again 10 kilometres of corrugated dirt road, but again well worth the effort. A very different coastline being sand dunes and not cliffs, and a very different breed of camper. Here it is all about shells and salmon fishing. Low tide exposes about 300 metres of beach as the drop off is very gradual. The low tide sand is littered with all manner of shells. Many people collect the shells and turn them into jewelry, ornaments, collections, etc.

80 Mile Beach Turtle Hatching, way out of season

High tide brings out the fisher-persons. For kilometres either direction along the beach from the camp you will see four wheel drives, quad bikes, trailers, motorbikes, golf buggies, set up for fishing. They cast into one metre deep water and wait. Usually there is plenty of action (like tailor fishing on Frazer I’m told), but while we were there we saw no one catch anything until the last afternoon, a baby shark and two small blue salmon. No one knows why, but the salmon aren’t there this year.

The Park is very well run and maintained, and they have a small but well stocked shop and even do cooked food on the weekends. We stayed for three nights, each day walking the beach at each tide, watching the shell collectors and fishers at their chosen pastime. Leah did her part for the environment, loggerhead turtles nest here and one (early or late) hatchling was flailing on the beach at 9 in the morning, 300 metres from the water. Leah picked it up and carried it to the water, it was a bit disoriented for a while but soon headed out to the ocean.

De Grey River Cattle,  looks like he needs a feed

Saturday we departed late morning (after a beach walk and coffee) and travelled only 150 kilometres and stopped at De Grey River camp spot, 80 kilometres out of Port Hedland. As you can see from the photo the camp and roads are shared with cattle. The roadside from Broome to Port Hedland are littered with cattle carcasses, like kangaroos in Queensland they get hit by the road trains at night.

Broome

July 29 to August 6

   

So, if I remember rightly, I was saying how apprehensive I was before arriving in Broome. The first day didn’t help, with the Iveco air conditioner stopping and paying premium caravan prices for massive overcrowded parks.

Careful where you camp at the Pistol Club

Well, a week is a long time. We found a great camp ground alternative to the caravan parks, less than half the price (not powered, but that’s fine for us). It was at the Pistol Club (no big bore guns, Pete), officially an overflow camp ground for when the caravan parks are full, it had all the facilities, better spacing between the vans, and a quiet location towards the port.

Gantheaume Point, looking north along Cable Beach

After originally booking for two nights at the Pistol Club, we decided to stay for 7 nights, the maximum allowed for the “overflow” parks. There are three overflow sites, the Pistol Club, the PCYC (around a big oval) and the Seventh Day church. The longer we stayed the more we enjoyed Broome. Although we had a couple of issues to resolve we were able to do all the tourist things we wanted at our leisure and enjoy the beaches. I had hoped to go kayak fishing but the wind conditions are interesting here. In Queensland the wind is light in the morning (when it’s cooler) and picks up during the day. “Over west” it blows from 9pm until midday (or longer), then in the heat of the day the wind eases off. It makes for uncomfortable afternoons and a lack of motivation to get organised to go fishing. With tides also not ideal I didn’t get a chance to go out.

Drinkin' with my mates

On Monday I tried to help a guy who got in trouble at the boat ramp, his small aluminium boat washed onto the rocks when launching on the windy morning. It was to no avail as the tides drop very fast (about 9 metres between low and high). He eventually decided to drag it off the rocks, tried to re-float and motor off, and sunk it. Very unfortunate.

We did however see (from the beach) the humpback whales migrating, some spectacular breaching and splashing only 500 metres off the beach. They seemed to be more active during the rough, windy mornings so you probably get a better view from comfort of the beach than from a charter whale watching cruise.

Cool fisheries boats, our tax dollars right there

Regarding the motorhome, I found a great air conditioner repair guy (Millar Air Conditioning if you’re ever in Broome), the owner decided to take my problem on as a challenge and by the end of the week he had repaired the split tube and re-gassed the system. We now seem to have a sensor issue with the air con, which I will try to resolve when I get to Port Headland.

On Saturday we departed Broome after re-stocking food and fuel, with our sights set on Barn Hill Station, 140km south of Broome.