2006/07 Australia trip - Port Hedlund |
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After a sidewalk lunch we set off south down the Great Northern Highway, heading for Karijini national park in the Pilbara area, source of much of Australia’s iron. We couldn’t get there in one day, so we were just driving as far as we could. The route was not too exciting. We were driving along a mostly straight flat road with bush on either side so all we could see was this single corridor of bush. We pulled off for the night at Stanley, one of the few rest areas where overnight camping is allowed. We ended up parked in the spinifex in a peaceful spot. The rest area had toilets but no toilet seats so this was an exercise in posture and positioning.
Sunday July 16th
It was a sunny Sunday morning but with a blustery cool wind blowing in off the desert. We continued for a few hours down the same road without any towns or changes in scenery until we reached Port Hedland. This is definitely a working town, a Duluth 
with palm trees. Its main business is shipping iron ore around the world, but it also has a salt evaporation business. Both of these require large trucks and trains and ships, so it’s a bustling place. Even on a Sunday, there were road trains roaring through town every few minutes. We had lunch in the town park on the edge of the Indian Ocean, which might have been the nicest place in town, but we couldn’t see any reason to stay around there any longer.
We’d been expecting to stay the night at another rest area but we’d made such good time (nothing to stop and look at!) that we thought we could make Karijini before dark. It was about 200 miles from there to the park through much more interesting scenery: great outcrops of red rock and then a canyon of red cliffs, but this time we couldn’t stop as we wanted to get into the park before dark. We were worried about kangaroos in the road but all we saw was one dingo ambling across. We arrived just at twilight, only to find that the campground was full and we had to use the overflow, which was also pretty much full. We were back in the spinifex again, but this time there was a toilet seat in the outhouse. No frogs, either!