Cape Lambert

A fantastic day out to Wickham, Roebourne, Point Samson, Cossack & Cape Lambert iron ore loading facility. The loading facility is the biggest in the country & is enormous covering, in my estimate, over a thousand hectares. It took over an hour to drive around it. They have over 260k of conveyer belts & can unload 5 trains simultaneously, each train with 240 cars. They really are moving WA overseas.

 Pano of a small part of the loading facility at Cape Lambert.

 As above.

 Our little tour bus had a really knowledgeable driver, who was also very funny.

 Another view.

 Ships being loaded at the 3.2k long jetty.

 Another view.

 A zoom pic of a fully loaded ship getting ready to depart. Very low in the water. Not surprising with an additional 200,000 tons on board.

 Rail lines coming into the ports from the mines.

 An old truck, no longer used because it is too small. The current generation is more than twice the size. They are also now using driverless autonomous trucks.

 Can you guess what this is. It was hard to tell.

 The same posts viewed from another angle. All is revealed.

 Historic school house at Cossack.

 Another historic building at Cossack. This was the first town in Australia where the pearling was started & then moved further North.

 The 120 year old dock at Cossack with a nice new shelter shed. Thats us having lunch.

 Locked up in the old Cossack jail.

 This is where the annual Cossack art show is held. Its a big deal & is the most remote art show on the planet.

 A radial aircraft engine on the verandah. A noisy way to cool your house.

 Another great tax payer investment of over 6 million dollars for a tin building in this indiginous town of 1000 people. They don't bother using it. There is another one being built next door with all double glazed windows, which are all smashed prior to it even being completed.

 This is called 'Mulla Mulla' & is the floral emblem of this region of the Pilbara.

 Pano of Karratha town

 As above.

 Another long iron ore train near our caravan park.

 This machine takes 2 train carriages at a time & tips them upside down to unload them in a couple of seconds.

 Our little bus when under & through all this complex & amazing machinery.

 As above.

As above.

Dampier

We have now been in Dampier for 2 days & have had a fair chance to look around. This whole region is the financial powerhouse for this country with the massive NorthWest shelf gas & oil project & a whole series of ports all exporting iron ore in staggering quantities. The royalties from this region carry Australia.
Tomorrow we are taking a bus tour to a few local historical locations & an iron ore loading facility.

 The crazy setup where we stayed in Karratha. You can see a fence in the middle of the pictograph, with a tent just on the other side. These are slabs from where 'dongas, used to be. The caravan park has taken over the ones on the other side of the fence, while the council has the ones on this side of the fence. If you stay this side it will cost $10. If you stay on the other side, in the caravan park, you will pay $35. It was a tough descision on which side to stay.

 The statue of 'Red Dog' at Dampier. The dog on which the movie 'Red Dog' was based. It was a very good movie. We saw it a year or so ago.

 'Sams' island in Dampier harbour. A hand built castle built by an Eastern European immigrant who first paddled over to the island on a pair of 44 gallon drums in 1960.

 An octopus moving across a bit of concrete at the boat ramp.

 There are rows & rows of these abandoned accommodation units all over town. It seems a great waste.
You can buy a complete block, cheap.

 There are several salt evaporation mines in the area. The sea is very salty here. This one alone exports over 4 million tons of salt per year.

 The rail lines to the port for iron ore . The trains are 2.4k long.

 At the North West shelf gas processing plant. This is a piece of gas pipe. There are 2 lines that extend 135k out to sea to the off shore platforms. The steel is an inch thich, covered with 2 layers of bitumen & felt & that is covered by nearly 3 inches of concrete. These are then dug into the seabed for the entire distance.

 Pano of the gas processing plant.

 Pano of some sacred rocks.

 It looks like rubble pushed up by a dozer, but its all natural.

 Pano of the swimming beach.

 A salt evaporation pond.

 The view from the front of the Dampier caravan park.

 Kevin & Jo, sunset drinks in front of the caravan park.

 Another of the very colourful sunsets here. The pic really doesn't show how powerful the colours are.

 Another view of Sams' island.

 Another 'Red Dog' statue. Red Dog is very popular here.

 A memorial to the men who lost their lives during construction of the North West shelf project.

 Part of the gas processing plant.

 Some friends who came to visit this afternoon. They took bread right from my hands.

Everyone came for a feed.

Karratha

Once again a little further south. We were going to stay in a riverside free camp, but our plans changed. Mcleans headed off 3 hours before us & we found them set up near a river later in the day.
Unfortunately there was limited space & we would have blocked the road & it was still quite hot anyway, so we  pushed on to Karratha. The decision ended up being a good one as by the time we arrived a cool sea breeze was blowing in & we found a great camp for only 10 bucks on a double sized slab (no red dust). Better still we were in Karratha, a much bigger town than we expected, with all the whistles & bells, so we decided to have dinner at the international hotel, under the palm trees beside the pool. It was all very pleasant & civilised. Off to Dampier in the morning & once again meet up with Mcleans.

 Pilot heading out to bring in another ship. This morning there were 22 giant ships waiting on the horizon for port entry.

 The one on the left just finished loading. The one on the right is only about one third done.
These things are huge, the metre marking on the red section are 23 metres to the black section.

 Another pilot heading out by chopper.

 Another giant coming in.

 The public jetty. The lower level was 2 metres under water yesterday.

 Another giant comes past our viewpoint at the park.

 Pano of the harbour entrance at Port Headland.

 Someone catching a lift across the harbour.

 Yvonne found a really big shell.

 Yvonne & some sea gulls.

 Yvonne & some brass turtles.

 There lots of areas of these pretty little fluff balls growing everywhere. They were very soft & delicate.

 You know what this pictograph is about !

 A few more iron ore mountains.

 Whim Creek pub.

 Whim Creek pub, letter box.

 You must know what this is.

 Sturt desert pea. There were quite a lot of these growing roadside

 As above.

 Its written on the wall.

 The old Roebourne goal.

 Trendy modern housing, with an authentic lived in look.

 Camp at Karratha. Pretty much had it to ourselves.

Peeping through the bars into an old jail cell.

At the international hotel. Roz would be proud of us.