Wyndham - our last coastal stop in WA

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Wyndham, our last look at the coastline of WA, as our journey from here will turn east through Kununurra and onwards eventually through Katherine to Darwin - weather permitting.

The journey from Warmun to Wyndham continued through rolling country with many areras suffering from bushfires. The area is generally at high risk away from the coast, and as Marg drove north we had to cross one particularly smoky zone. Fortunately, the fire was well subsided so for a few minutes we drove through the haze.

It was not until we got to Wyndham and climbed to the hill top lookout that the extent of the fires could be assessed. In almost 360 degrees of view, there was smoke. None of the fires were threatening, but certainly wide spread.

As Marg drove, we passed every 10 minutes some large 4 car road trains running to an iron ore mine just off the highway. Each driver does the 5 hour return trip twice a day, running through to a loading point at Wyndham. When the trucks arrive at the port, they are weighed for tonnage, and then drive around a ramp area and then side tip their loads ready for a huge front end loader to push the load up a mound. The ore is then loaded into barges via a conveyor, and the collecting ship uses elevators to lift the ore from the barge. The barges carry about 5000 tonnes of ore. Not sure how efficient this is. We saw BHP and Rio's slick operations earlier where they can load 100,000 tonnes in 24 hours. However, this operation was well managed with very little dust to pollute the township.

Wyndham has three claims to fame, it's giant crocodile, giant boab tree, and sunsets over the five rivers. We didn't strike a great sunset, too much smoke, the croc is a whopper, in fact our grandson in Perth was stunned and asked his mum if it was a dinosaur. Then when he saw the size relative to the motorhome in the background, I think he got ideas that he should come and have a look.

There are five major rivers that join at or near Wyndham, and from the lookout, the plaque will help you figure them all out. The rivers then flow out to sea via the Cambridge Gulf.



The giant Boab tree is open to the public, and as it happened, was three trees away from our site in the caravan park. Yes, it is big! 25 mtr girth.

The camping ground has a supervisor by the name of Eeyore. He collects the rent, but only from children.

We had seen quite a few trees over the past couple of days just starting to blossom bright yellow flowers on the ends of their barren branches. Just a little out of Wyndham was the same tree in full flower. Very spectacular against the dark blue sky.

Our next stop will be Kununurra.

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Photos

Smoke on highway
North of Warmun

One of may road trains
The iron ore fleat.

Eeyore - Park supervisor
Collects rent for sites from children - no plastic, just carrots. Wyndham

Giant boab tree
25mtr around base

Seems we are OK
This region is subject to cyclones most years.

The yellow tree
Wyndham

Comments

[Mum & Dad]

Like your effort
Good set of photos and interesting commentary. Pretty dry country though.