23 July 2019
Another low tide walk followed by packing up and heading further south to Port Hedland. We saw clouds today. Bit depressing really after a month of cloudless skies.
We arrived at Port Hedland around 1130 am, and after some messing around getting to the campsite due to a burn off and closed roads, we arrived, set up camp and had lunch. Port Hedland is as busy as everywhere else. Not a powered site left in the town. We went into the Seafarers Centre after lunch to book tours for the following day, only to find that the tour of the Fortescue Metals shiploading activities was booked out and we couldn’t get on the harbour tour until 1 pm. We decided to stay a second night, as we are here for these tours. I’m not at all sure what we will do in PH for an extra day. Two of the highest rated things to do in town are lookout points – which tells me that people think looking away from this city is the way to go.
It is an interesting place though. It is all about shipping out the iron ore, and the road network is clearly built for very big trucks and road trains. It isn’t a pretty town at all. But it is interesting all the same.
We are camped in overflow camping around the PH golf club. Bill has brought some balls and a couple of clubs with him, so we went out and he played 9 holes whilst I wandered along with him, looking for stray golf balls. It was a nice way to spend the arvo, and he played the last couple of holes with some locals, which always makes for interesting conversation.
We headed into South Hedland for dinner. SH is where most people seem to live, rather than around the port, so there is a bit more activity. Dinner was lovely – really good schnitzels.
Back to camp, and we started to get a bit of an idea of how bad the road noise was going to be. During the day, we just didn’t notice it. We are about a km from the main highway to Newman and there are road trains passing constantly. At night, they sound like they are going right past the camp! A night for ear plugs.
Bill trying to putt on a ‘green’ with his 4 iron.
Travelling the Big Island 