Day 19: Pilbara Pillage

Well we are in a state of shock – the juxtaposition of such beauty in Exmouth Peninsula and Coral Bay with the unbelievable ugliness of Karratha and it’s accompanying little tourist town sister who has been prettied up for the tourists – but who doesn’t really fool anyone … Dampier.

 It is truly confronting to see the huge operations of Rio Tinto in this area.  It really is pillage of the earth, and yes, yes, we understand that this is where the wealth of Australia lies, but it is done on such a huge scale that one feels violated just looking at it – okay, I must be more of a greenie than I thought, but it actually makes me feel sad – to see such ruthless pillage of the earth’s resources (wow – my greenie tendencies must be rubbing off on Kim).

We entered Karratha by waiting at a level crossing for some fifteen minutes while the longest iron ore train imaginable slowly went by – and that was the start of it – it is a mining megalopolis and if that pushes your buttons – then you will like this area – doesn’t do it for us and we will be hightailing it outta here first thing tomorrow morning. 

The place is made up of:

• Fly-in-fly-out hostels everywhere with mine workers obviously living here for a week or so at a time and then flying home for a week
• Red rocks and dirt everywhere – only green thing is the footy field
• Everything seems to be made of iron: rocks, trains, carriages, conveyer belts, ships in the port
• All around are mines and industries of varying sorts:  gas works, iron ore mines, mineral mines (salt)
• There are endless trains bringing in iron ore from the interior of the country, dumping it on conveyer belts which cart and load it continuously onto ships docked in the port and sending it off shore

 The drive here was fairly long (500 kms), and the drive tomorrow will be long again (about 600 kms), but we will finish up at 80 Mile Beach – just after Port Headland (and no, we won’t be going in there to check out the Detention Centre – Karratha is enough misery for one lifetime ­ I guess Kimmy is a green rolling hills person).  80 Mile Beach promises to be beautiful once again and so we will be back in our comfort zone but most likely out of internet and phone range – we plan to stay there for a few days, (concentrated fishing for Rich and studying for Kim) so probably won’t be able to post a blog until we get to Broome on Friday.

Highlight of the day for Kim:   getting a new hairdryer! J  the old one blew up on plugging into a low voltage power sources at the last caravan park.

Highlight of the day for Rich:  stopping off at a dry river bed with pools of water left over from the big recent rain – and doing some bird watching

Rip off of the day:  $18 that a road house charged us for a chocolate and two drinks and diesel at $1.75 per litre!!

Hope for the future:   80 Mile Beach 

So from the happy travellers (actually only Rich is still happy – I think Kim lives green landscapes not red, plus she is stressed by impending exams), we will chat again in a few days time, hopefully in a far better frame of mind! J