​Back to the Pilbara one last time - end of July to early August 2017

North West Shelf project. It's a huge spread of metal - towers, gas round storage thingoes. Quite awesome and incongruous in this wild countryside.

We're in Carnarvon, the only point on the Australian coast line where the central desert extends to the sea! However ...... back to the Pilbara one last time. We were beginning to feel a bit tour-ed out having done a number over the last few weeks all centred around the mining and resources export sector - Woodside visitors centre with a comprehensive video and displays about the North West Shelf LNG operations, Cape Lambert iron ore facility, Port Hedland. But they have been fascinating and I highly recommend them.

A monument to those people who rescued miners in the early days. Burn off jet in the background.

Cossak beach were once they held the annual horse races. Cossak on the Point Samson peninsula was evidently the first settled in the Pilbara and the first pearling port. So many stories...... hmmm.

The Pilbara contains almost 15% of the worlds economically mineable iron ore deposits and produces 300 million tonnes of exports pa. Wow! And astonishingly there's still loads more. Must run out some time! My head is filled with names which are synonymous with mining - Newman, Tom Price, Wittenoom (that name sends a shudder through many but we visited it), Marble Bar (the prospect of gold and jasper - goodie!!) and of course Karratha and Dampier.

The ghost town of Wittenoom shut down in the 1960s. It has been wiped off the map at the official level - no road signs or directions. They don't want people there but there are still a few residents and others like us curious to visit the place.

One tends to get a bit mining-focussed but the Pilbara is a fascinating region independent of its rich natural resources.
To be continued.....

​Karratha and Dampier - 30 July to 3 August 2017

Everywhere you look there are piles large and small of these red rocks nestled amongst spinifex and scrub, snowy Snappy Gums and vibrant Sturt's Desert Pea

Part of Deep Gorge. It is rather awesome as well as gorgeous!

Karratha and Dampier sit within one of the strangest geographical phenomenon - piles of broken rocks the colour of dried blood. It's as if they have been dumped there in huge jumbled mounds ready for processing, but no they are a visible part of the Pilbara Craton! The Craton is a very old and stable part of the earth's crust and one of only two pristine Archaean (3 billion yo) crusts identified on earth. Did I hear a wow!! It is believed to possibly be part of the super-continent of Ur - that's way before Gondwana. Worth a look up on google - it is absolutely mind blowing - my mind at least!
So what about those rock piles which surrounded us? The rocks are igneous, part of the earth's crust and/or mantle so are very hard and resistant to erosion unlike the surrounding and overlying sedimentary rock. Why do they look like rubble? It seems that fractures developed in the crust due to cooling and movement over the billions of years. Then when that rock was exposed due to the erosion of surrounding rock, it collapsed leaving these astonishing piles. More than that you'll need to look up!

We drove through the loading facility at Port Lambert and felt dwarfed by the enormous structures towering over and around us.

And looming on the horizon on the west of the Burrup Peninsula is Woodside LNG plant.  Quite intimidating. We went to their Visitors Centre and spent an hour or two learning a little about the construction, drilling, refining, etc etc of this precious earth  juice!

What a place of contrasts - I love it! Gazing through the jigsaw puzzle of steel girders, towers, conveyor belts, giant icecream scoops, and long cantilevered protrusions disgorging crushed ore - or salt. Beyond all that manmade machinery and 'stuff' stretches the most cyclone-prone coastline on the west coast. And beyond that, the Indian Ocean where out to sea, whales breach and send columns of spray high into the air - we saw a couple of those glorious big beast! 3000 whales pass by these shores every year, some bringing their young in close to shore to feed and rest.

One of the larger carvings high above me.

Of course Lindsay had to take a closer look! and there I was with my heart in my mouth. Pretty precarious really, the naughty boy (we saw later a sign saying not to climb on the rocks - woops!)

They look rough hewn and range in size.

Another carving. They all were strange looking creatures.

About turn and look in the other direction, and among the tumbled piles of broken pieces of the earth's crust are 1000s of images etched into the rocks of Deep Gorge in the Murujuga NP in the Burrup peninsula. They are believed to be 10s of 1000s of years old and the highest concentration of rock carvings in the world. This place!

I found this exotic looking beauty and have since figured it is a member of the emu or poverty bush family.  

There were no defined paths into the gorge. One just followed a stony passage cut bu streams over time (so much more exciting!)

And just down the road and on a more current note. Red dog, made world famous by Louis de Bernieres, and then an Aussie star by a couple of movies, is buried near the Point Samson, near Roebourne and Cossack. But those places are stuff of another story - maybe!

A memorial at Dampier to to Red Dog, amazing creature that he was.

​Salt of the earth! - iron ore and salt 2 8-29 July 2017

This little 'fire box' has been terrific! We've added a small camp oven so we're home and hosed in the food and warmth department. It's all lots of fun!

We passed odd looking hills on our trip to Port Hedland. These looked like they had red crew cuts. All that iron ore poking out ..... but wait till you see further south into the Pilbara!

With Broome done and dusted, we headed south for the Pilbara with a delightful overnight roadside stop. We nestled in among wattle bushes, lit a campfire and Lindsay cooked his first damper for breakfast the next morning. Good one Lindsay!

Wow! Imagine the acidity of the ocean if that lot got washed out to sea. It doesn't beat thinking about. The piles and the evaporation ponds fairly glisten as you approach. An awesome sight!

The horizon as we drove into Port Hedland was dominated by towering mountains of glistening salt. We'd arrived at the largest solar salt works in Australia, the 2nd biggest in the world (I think Dampier is the biggest exporter of solar salt in the world - but who's counting). My head has been chocked so full of statistics that I simply can't remember them - did I hear a big sigh of relief? But in case you're interested the salt is exported for industrial use and much of that for the plastics industry where it is used to turn stuff into other stuff!

No this tree doesn't have red trunk and branches. Like everything in Port Hedland, everything has a coating of rich red iron ore dust.

Port Hedland is a ginormous port with over a dozen loading docks which operate 24/7 shipping out 100s of millions of tons of iron ore each year - staggering! What goes into all the holes they are digging in our Australia? We might get swallowed up by the sea and that's before global warming raises the sea level much further. But ....

These little tugs do an amazing job zipping in and out parking and deparking! Massive ships. I mean we're talking about 9 hold ships which carrying up to 200,000 tons of our good earth!

Check out the size difference between tugs and ship. They manage however to manoeuvre these monsters into just the right place seemingly effortlessly. Fascinating to watch.

I took this pic to show you a very clever way of berthing the ships. See those yellow square things? They're giant magnets. The tugs push the ship close to the wharf and these magnet get turned on and suck the ship alongside. Clever eh!?

The port is like something out of a sci-fi movie with gigantic machinery, mostly unmanned, feeding the ships' gaping bowels below. Something like ever second enough iron ore is loaded to make a car!

We jumped on a fantastic harbour tour operated by the Seafarers Centre. Every day they take a large launch around all the ships in port to collect seamen wanting to go ashore. They provide a wonderful service which includes sorting out legal and medical issues, advocacy and more. The tour included lots of background and then we headed out on the water. We collected seamen from 3 ships and got to talk with some of them. Very interesting!

This was a Chinese ship. You can see a few seaman starting down the gangway ready to board the Seafarers launch we were on. Jolly big ship eh!? It's waiting to be loaded. When filled they settle down into the water up to the black part of their hulls. Remember Archimedes and the bathtub?

This ship was manned by Russian and Ukrainian seamen. I got to talk to one of them. It was his birthday and he was off to buy champagne to celebrate. The ship was a dry ship so I imagine there'd be lots of celebrating and sore heads before they got back on board.

With that intro to the Pilbara, it was time to really get into it so we headed south for Karratha and Dampier.

​Dinosaurs, pearls and plums ..... 22-26 July 2017

The Sam Male pearl lugger built in the 1950s

Broome is a popular spot and an area if great contrasts. It delivers lots of glitz and glamour but importantly it has quite unique things to offer as well. I really had no idea what to expect before we got there - apart from Horizontal falls and Cape Leveque. But what captured my interest were simple things like no houses have guttering because of the torrential rain. When you looked around the reality of cyclones on everyday living was quite evident but woven seamlessly into the life of the area; this is the case all along the NW coastal areas. New houses are built of metal and designed to withstand a category 6 cyclone. That and the history both of natural and 'man made'.
Being a plant tragic, I was curious about the native Gubinge fruit (aka Billy goat plum) a small plum native to the Kimberley. They are good bush tucker and also considered a super food because they supposedly have the highest Vitamin C and antioxidant content of any fruit on the planet. I want some! I have seen lots of trees but no fruit - wrong season.
Talking of plants. The stunning Green Birdflower I posted the other day is also called the minmin and a favourite bush tucker because of its sweet nectar.

Green Birdflower (one of the rattlepod pea family). Pays to stop and take a closer look.

If you look closely you will see a small hole drilled into the flower. Some time later we saw honey eaters burrowing into these flowers - a simple back door entry! I've seen birds hanging off the stalks of water lilies drilling into the flowers after the nectar. Clever things.  

Broome was founded on the pearling industry so off we went to a pearl farm to see what it's all about. A fascinating and rich industry! It's also labour intensive. It takes 2 years from seeding for the oyster to grow a pearl. During that time the shells are cleaned frequently and checked for infestations from worms plants and the like. Each shell can be reseeded up to 3 times and then they use the mantle to plant shapes cut from mussel shells plus some nacre secreting tissue. At the end of its life the shell is ground down and the powder used in paints and cosmetics. They really wring everything out of these humble creatures.

We were fortunate to have a marine biologist as our guide. Can you imagine I hardly asked any questions! He was terrific. We were given a thorough anatomy and physiology lecture about oysters and how they make pearls. There was a pearl in this particular shell which we eventually got to handle! Worth over $1000!

I'm sure you've all seen these special cages the shells are kept in and carefully tended as often as every 2-3 weeks in the wet season. They have to be cleaned to rid them of plant and animal growth and also have to be examined to ensure they are not infested with things like shell-eating worms etc. we saw a few different nasties in formaldehyde- ugh!

Once shells have been seeded 3-4 times they insert small moulds cut from a particular type of mussel shell, under the sensory mantle with a little nacre producing tissue. And voila! Pearl shapes to order.

The industry was actually established on pearl buttons etc but when plastic came into use, the industry was hit hard. Enter the magic little gem - the pearl! And no I didn't buy any. Tempted but ....... I did resolve to get out my 50 odd yo old pearls and look at them with different eyes.

The peninsula is spotted with cathedral termite mounds. They are massive but what you see is only a small part of the colony. Like icebergs, the largest mass is underground. Some are over 100 years old. In days gone by Aboriginal people buried their dead in some if them.

A replica of a small set tracks placed on top of the cliff at Gantheaume Point for those people to see who didn't make it down the cliff. Me for one! The size? About 25cm but there are some almost 2m long!

Stretching along 20-30km of the blood-red coastline of the Dampier peninsula, preserved in the sands and clays compacted the millennia are the footprints of dinosaurs imprinted 130 million years ago! 21 different types of dinosaur tracks. The most diverse assemblage in the world. Australia's own Jurassic Park!

The tracks were down there on the edge of the rock shelf and only seen at low tide. It was too scary for me but pretty awesome to see and contemplate.

Ah the rocks! Just look at those colours. The cliffs below the chili-red oxidised patina resembled an oil painters palette. Glorious!

For me the stripes are so beautiful in themselves but they are evidence of an ancient land story which one can only wonder about. Good food for dreams!

According to the Goolarabooloo people, the area's traditional custodians, it forms part of a song cycle that extends along the coast and then inland 450km tracing the journey of a Dreamtime creator called Marsala, the Emu man. It is intriguing! Beats a 'staircase to the moon' hands down in my book.

This is Willie Creek estuary. The Willie Creek Pearl Farm farms pearls within the creek but also 10s of km out to sea. This company has rights to farm 20000 shells - it's a carefully controlled industry.

​

Horizontal falls and Cape Leveque - 26 July 2017

We saw the sun come up over Cable Beach

A ghastly 5.30 am start but so worth it! We saw the sun come up on our way north - wow, wow and wow again! Five seaplanes took off from Broome that morning plus a bunch of 4WD trucks. We flew over coastline which would make Slartibartfast proud! Archipelagos, rugged cliffs and gorges softened here and there with tissue-thin green velour cast wide like a mist net. Finally we landed in Talbot Bay which nestles within the McLarty ranges. The whole area is characterised by towering sandstone pushed up in angular planes, compressed into curvy strata - and then there are the reefs. Huge expanses of them which magically rise out of the sea and disappear with the tides. But we were there to see the falls! Man oh man .....

Fling over the McLarty Ranges

The falls from up top!

I'm sure you've all see the advertising footage of these interesting falls so I won't go into details ...... oh alright! No really I won't, other than to say we zoomed through both narrow openings at enormous speed many times - and yes I was whooping along with everyone.

These are two house boats coupled together. People stay here over night so it's very well equipped.

That's our wee plane. As fast as one lot of people were unloaded another lots were lined up ready to board.

It's not possible to capture the falls on still camera (my video is too big to upload). The turbulence of the water was quite exciting with waves and whirl pools forming and dissipating as fast as you could get the camera lined up. It was fab!

We had to come back to this one when the tide changed because the drop in water through the gap when we first arrived was 2m! Try climbing up that! no way our 900 hp boat would have made it through. It's a huge torrent of water!

We breakfasted on a houseboat-duplex-pontoon thingie just near the falls where sea planes were landing and taking off, and where helicopters buzzed in and out like dragonflies. Bacon and eggs never tasted better!

We watch Tawny Nurse sharks being fed. Huge gentle creatures. Some people hopped in a caged area next to where the sharks were milling, but not this little black duck!

This group of sharks while still very much wild creatures have makes and have been trained to come in on a signal. A couple are quite happy to have their tummies stroked and present their fins to be grabbed. Amazing and beautiful!

Totally replete, we were bundled back on the boat for a trip up Cyclone creek through a majestic sandstone gorge. Plus another few passes through the falls! Then it was time to board our little floating flying machine and head over to Cape Leveque for a Barra lunch after a visit to a trochus hatchery.

This group of sharks while still very much wild creatures have makes and have been trained to come in on a signal. A couple are quite happy to have their tummies stroked and present their fins to be grabbed. Amazing and beautiful!

Back on board for the trip across King Sound to Cape Leveque taking in the Buchaneer archipelago.

I have forgotten the number of islands in the group but it's a big number! Only 4 are inhabited by man.

Our return trip took us to a remote beach for a paddle and then a visit to the Beagle Bay community to see the mission church with its astonishingly beautiful pearl shell alter. Then we hit the dirt for home a few hundred km south. It was a long exhausting but entirely fascinating day!

We visited the trochus hatchery at Ardiyooloon near the Cape. There are a number of species being protected and bred from that spot.

The beach was glaring red rock, pale sand and turquoise water. Rather idyllic - except for the heat

The interior of the church is decorated throughout with pearl shells. Gorgeous.