80 Mile Beach & Port Hedland

After a week in one spot we all had itchy feet so decided to put in a big driving day and head down to 80 mile beach. After hearing how lovely it was we were sorely disappointed to find out that there is no swimming (or only at your own risk) due to SHARKS! It is somewhat of a fishing mecca though so Miss E bought some bait and finally got to wet a line. The tidal beach was very shallow so it was hard for her to get the line out very far –needless to say there were lots of nibbles but no fish caught. Apart from the amazing sunset there really wasn’t much else to do – apart from a little shell collecting. The shells along this beach were mostly a translucent white and not very interesting. Mr J found another 7 year old boy to play soccer with which he thought was great! The girls weren’t so impressed as this family collected roadkill skulls and they thought that was beyond revolting! Guaranteed that won’t be a collection we’ll be bringing home! So the next day we headed off to Port Headland to make the most of a free camp in town that was open until the end of the week.

Port Hedland

Salt Mining

Port Hedland exists for one reason: mining. It is a pretty amazing town that never sleeps. Our stay was in a carpark free camp at the racecourse. It was very dusty and noisy but mostly free of mozzies & sandflies so got to be happy with that! We sort of got used to noise of the 24 hr a day iron ore trains. The salt mining was amazing! After a quick drive around the port we booked into the Seafarers Tour – they are a not-for-profit organisation that provides a welcoming base for sailors (seafarers) that come into port on the massive freight ships. We got to explore the port via boat and also picked up some Chinese seafarers off a few of the ships berthed in the port and took them back to the Seafarer’s centre for shopping and phone & internet use. The Chinese seafarers were very taken with our 4 children and even asked Kieren to get photos with them. Some of the ships we saw were 300m in length and were loading up with 245,000 tonnes of iron ore!

In the afternoon we explored South Hedland – the miner’s suburb that seemed largely funded by the mining companies.  It had an amazing sports stadium, pool, shopping centre and lots of other facilities. The rest of the family enjoyed the pool while I got all the laundry done. I finished around 5.30pm but couldn’t get them out of the solar-heated pools! They were having too much fun being the only people crazy enough to swim at night! Thankfully the pool also had hot showers as the free camp had left us all pretty dusty.

We met a lovely family at the free campground with 2 teenagers. Master J was pretty chuffed to hang out with a 15 year old boy who was “so cool” (his words!) and Miss E and Miss A got on famously with their 13 year old daughter. As we were travelling the same direction we met at the next free camp. Somehow even with us leaving hours earlier, they only arrived a half hour later than us. Far out – refilling water tanks, emptying waste, toilet stops, fuel stops, trying to make phonecalls whilst dealing with limited Telstra coverage, collecting firewood, more toilet stops….turns a 4 hour drive into a mammoth day-long saga! Luckily we pulled into the Albert Tognolini Rest stop just before sunset.

This rest stop was sensational – it is situated on a mountainside overlooking the Pilbara red mountains and wildflowers. We watched the sun set at our friend’s site and then headed over to ours after a quick dinner for campfire marshmallows. I would have loved another day just for the view but Karajini National Park beckoned.