Advertisement
Published: October 19th 2009
Day 174 - De Grey River to Karijini National Park via Port Hedland!
And there was us thinking that the early morning dawn chorus would wake us up at some ludicrous hour! Neither of us woke till just before 6am, what a lie in that was!
It’s a relatively short journey to Port Hedland, a very industrial mining town where Rio Tinto and BHP rule all! It’s got a bit of a different look from Broome! Port Hedland is one of the busiest commodity ports in the world and the largest in Australia. BHP Billiton Iron Ore exports more than 100 million tonnes of iron ore per year from its harbour. Definitely a boys place!
There’s no intention to stop overnight here, although we suspect it might be fun but we’re only here for the visitors centre so make our way through to the town and hang around until it opens. It at least gives us the time to check the phone and we find two text messages - the first is from Tony & Jane at home in Orange and the second is from Belinda in Broome. Our phone is again out of credit, bloody thing, but
I do manage to send Jane an email telling her where we are and where we’re heading! Hopefully when we get into Tom Price we’ll be able to catch up properly.
I’d forgotten that it was Saturday today and that meant the visitors centre didn’t open til ten o’clock, although that was a bit of a guess as the information on the door was out of date - it only went up til September! We just needed to confirm some more information about the road network going into Karijini. I think it’s sealed all the way to the campground but I wanted to be sure before I dragged us the 298 kms in only to find we couldn’t take the caravan! The original plan was to drive into the national park via the Great Northern Highway south of Port Hedland and then return the same way and continue down the coast. From the leaflets I pick up when the doors do finally open it turns out that there’s a sealed road into the campground and through to Tom Price, then Paraburdoo which will put us back on the North West Highway just above Exmouth for our next long stop.
We’ll miss the towns of Dampier and Karratha but it will save us around 600kms so that has to be a good thing surely. It was worth the stop!
We didn’t look too closely around town but it does have some interesting features which Darryl wandered around while I sorted some things out on line. From the information on the board outside the visitors centre we worked out which ship we watched being loaded from Marrapikurinya Park, it’s bound for Korea with 177000 tonnes of iron ore! Plus we find an advert for the recruitment drive of Santa Claus, time flies fast when you're having fun! I wonder if they'll accept WWOOFers?!
On the way out of town we think we caught sight of what used to be the Worlds Longest Train! Not sure of the exact details but we gather it runs between here and Newman, where it is loaded with iron ore, funnily enough! It went on for miles and I counted 300 carriages before I ran out of fingers and toes to add things too!
The road to Karijini is long but the landscape is quite dramatic in places. We had our own bit
of drama about 120 kms from Port Hedland when we blew our very first tyre of the whole trip! It was the caravan tyre on the driver’s side but luckily the tyre itself remained intact and therefore inflated so there was no other damage. I kept a watchful eye out for road trains while Dar was putting the spare on and a couple that we’d first chatted to at De Grey River stopped to make sure we weren’t stranded and that we had plenty of water, bless them. We were soon on our way, both secretly hoping that the other tyre didn’t decide it had also had enough as then we’d be a bit stuck!
It was still a long way to go before the turn off for Karijini and we passed plenty of oversize mine vehicles coming in our direction some of them struggling with the steeper winding parts of the road. Roadtrains and of course their drivers are in a league of their own but today we get a real ‘treat’ when we’re overtaken by one and he then goes on to overtake another on a bend with a car coming the other way! He swerves back
in and then gives it another go when he gets the all clear shout from the other driver. He steamed into the distance doing about 110kms an hour, there was no way we could keep up with our little 2.7 turbo!!
We made it to the Auski roadhouse and filled up with fuel again, when we’re in the middle of nowhere we play our ‘guess the cost’ game! $1.51 per litre was the cost for diesel, Darryl won that one! We enquired about the cost of tyres and were quoted $165 for just one! Ouch! The guy even said that it would be cheaper if we waited til Tom Price so that’s what we decided to do. It’s not a huge town but it does have two separate tyre establishments so we’re hopeful for a better deal. Funnily enough our good friends Kangaroojack had to replace their Patrol tyres there, let’s hope it doesn’t cost the $1800 it cost them!
Finally, after what seemed like forever, we got to the turning off the highway and headed for the Karijini National Park. It’s still really hot outside but with our new 12 volt fridge working away in the back
of the car we have at least got plenty of cold water to keep us cool! We headed straight for the visitors centre to pick up any leaflets they might have on the walking trails, there are a few which are pretty tough apparently! It’s all a bit confusing but the lady is very helpful and shows us some photographs which make the whole area look positively stunning. We’re only planning to stay a couple of nights so we hope we can get around and see everything! We ask about the road going through to Tom Price and she confirms that it is sealed but there are bush fires along the way so it has been intermittently closed due to the smoke. Hopefully it will have been contained by the time we start to travel in that direction. She shows us a map of the local area which indicates the amount of fires there are currently, it’s a bit of a surprise to find we’re almost surrounded but from a distance.
We arrive at Dales Campground to check in and get allocated our camp spot at a cost of $7 per person per night by the campground hosts. A
big smile goes a long way usually when you check in and today was no exception! We were allocated a lovely shady spot and got the low down on the local wildlife - dingoes and snakes! They ask you not to pat, pet or feed either of them, well ok, if you insist!
Once we’ve set the caravan up we head in the direction of Fortesque Falls and Fern Pool for a swim. It’s gorgeous and the water is beautifully cool, just what we wanted after a hot drive. While we were down there I chatted to a guy who had recently climbed Mt Augustus, the highest ‘rock’ in the world! It’s something that I’ve been thinking we might do if we have time. It’s a bit of a drive out there but the road conditions aren’t too bad apparently although the chap wasn’t overly impressed with the actual climb. He said there wasn’t much of a view from the top which is always a disappointment when it’s taken 6 hours from your day to get up there and back down! Still, something to consider if we feel energetic or get bored with swimming in glorious gorges! It’s getting
less likely already!
We decide to come back down here again tomorrow with our snorkel gear to see just what we’re swimming with but nothing disturbs us today! The climb back to the top wasn’t as bad as we’d imagined it was going to be either so hopefully we won’t suffer too much tomorrow with the bigger walks!
Back at camp we’re entertained by a couple of lads in the pitch next door who are playing the guitar in the early evening but then it all goes quiet and once we’ve eaten dinner we retire to the no-fly zone of the caravan! Flies are the bain of caravanning existence at times, they strike when you least expect them to!
Lights out at 21:21, it should be an early start tomorrow!
Dar and Sar
Advertisement
Tot: 0.372s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 16; qc: 133; dbt: 0.1773s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
Sue
non-member comment
Foto's
Hi Guys We were introduced to your blog by Andy & Caroline (Kangaroo Jack), we became friends when we met at Kangaroo Island SA. They stayed with us in Perth. We always read their blog and now yours as well. I would like to say i am absolutley in love with the photos you both take. The colours etc are just fantastic. I was born (Sue) in Western Australia but as yet i have not travelled up north. Thank you for allowing me to view your wonderful photos. It has given me a slight glimps of what i hope to see when we do our trip up north in the future. Looking forward to the rest of your holiday snaps. Sue & Cliff