Heading South

With mixed feelings we now start to head south - that's because we now head away from the tropics and it will just get cooler, but also because there is more of this big state of WA to see and visit. So now we move away from the Kimberley and head into the Pilbara. On the way down from Broome to Port Hedland there are some extremely good 'free camp' spots and so we therefore get a very good first impression of the Pilbara councils. As you get closer to Port Hedland the council even starts providing free WiFi at these 'Welcome Rest Areas' or 24 hour campspots so you can sit under the shelters and catch up on your emails etc! The best two were De Grays, lovely campspots on the De Gray River and Albert Tognolini, fabulous view over the ranges, on the way to Karijini. The stretch between Broome and Port Hedland is about 700km and was once one of Australias loneliest roads, the Sandfire Roadhouse was opened by an enterprising young couple in the 70's and has now become quite an icon and still owned by the same family. Along this stretch is also Eighty Mile Beach. I have just converted this to kms: 129kms!! Of beach. A vast expanse of Beach with an amazing array of the most beautiful shells we have seen.

Port Hedland marked our introduction to the mining industry of WA. We watched huge ships, they were 300m long, leave the port laden with iron ore and heading to China. The most enormous pile of salt ever to be seen was also a feature there.

Another delightful place to camp at Port Hedland. This is the view from the caravan door:

and the next morning as were having breakfast a herd of dolphins swam by.

Spent a morning at the South Hedland Aquatic Centre, beautiful Olympic size pool almost to ourselves, what great facilities these mining towns have, can see there is a lot of $s here, and from Port Hedland its inland to Karijini National Park and surrounds, which includes some significant mining areas such as Tom Price among others.