The Pilbara

We got away from Broome on, gosh, let me think… it must have been Wednesday. We had a couple of last minute things to do to tick off our time there.

First was a Cable Beach sunset. We arrived in plenty of time to accompany the thousands of others intent on the same experience. Cable Beach has that “must-see” reputation among travellers. I can see that it is – what shall we say… iconic? No, I think I will settle for “over-hyped” to the extent that it was just a bit disappointing. The foreshore was a buzz of people filled with the excitement of this experience. There were jugglers, flame dancers, people sitting around smoking pot, lines of camels with their human cargo, 4-wheel drives on the beach for show. There is a word for this but I am having difficulty thinking what it is. Someone will help me… predictable, possibly. Someone – please advise.

Earlier in the day we tried to see Gantheaume Point which is supposed to have some excellent cliff views, but we got off track a bit and instead saw some nice rocky outcrops a couple of hundred meters away, which will have to do.

Finally we headed off to the movies at the Sun Garden Theatre to see Dream Horse. It was an excellent movie of that genre of British movies where poor folks from poor towns make good against all odds. There were some good laughs. We were primed for the scene where the airplane seems to soar from the screen, with cameras aready, but of course it happens so quickly and we missed the shots.

Someone was asking for some more information about the pearls we bought at Cygnet Bay. They are keshi pearls – that is they are the ones that form naturally in the oyster and not cultured. Because they are natural, they don’t have that perfect symmetry of the artificial ones. They have a slight creamy pink colour which is very attractive when set into a shell-shaped setting for the pearl. Unfortunately, Jen’s piercings have closed up a bit so only one earring fits. I have offered to drill out the closed piercing with my new hammer drill, but Jen has rebuffed this offer. I am not sure how she will manage, as Jen has a pain threshold of zero.

Our intended destination on Wednesday was a roadhouse about 260 kilometres down the road. It was about halfway to Port Hedland, so a reasonable staging point. However, as is our custom, we paused for morning tea at mid-point and I got to chat with some fellow travellers. There is wonderful bonhomie among travellers who are glad to have a yarn about their travels, how happy they are to be thousands of kilometres from Covid-ridden eastern States, to share the pitfalls as well as information about places not to miss. We were strongly encouraged to miss Sandfire and continue a further 50 kilometres to stay at 80 Mile Beach. We were warned that the 10 kilometres from the highway to the beach was a bit rugged, but manageable. We agreed to make this our destination and we are so glad we did.

We stopped at the roadhouse at Sandfire for fuel. The place was overrun with cars and trucks and busses jostling for a place in the queue for fuel, jostling for a place in the queue to buy coffee or food and no doubt jostling for a place to park for the night. I also met the unfriendliest traveller so far who did not take very kindly to my polite request to move his vehicle a few metres to allow my van to fit in safely. So for many reasons we were happy to move on from Sandfire, and the road to 80 Mile Beach was fine. Okay, the corrugations were pretty brutal in part and my teeth fell out, but by taking the cautionary step of slowing down and navigating the smoother parts, we got there without any damage.

To our surprise, the camping ground at 80 Mile Beach is vast, and clearly people come to stay awhile. There is not much to do there except enjoy the fact that you are well off the beaten track, that the beach is endless and for fisherfolk, there is plenty to catch off the beach when the tide is in. The sand is soft between your toes and the shallow pools of water left behind by the retreating tide, are cool and refreshing. It is so very pleasant to form fleeting but warm friendships with people you are unlikely to see again, and listen to the stories of their adventures.

Much as it would be nice to stay longer, we are driven by our timetable and bookings. I had an important Zoom meeting so we pushed a little harder to get to Port Hedland by 1.30pm. We were also pushing into a substantial head and side wind which made driving a bit trickier.

Eventually the wide flat lands of the Kimberley gave way to the wide flat lands of the Pilbara. There are subtle changes to the landscape, and you get the sense that the deserts to the East run right down to the beaches along the western coast. Closer to Port Hedland there is the unmistakeable evidence of mining with power lines, rail tracks, huge road trains laden with ore for the port, and of course trains with unnumbered wagons of ore.

It is also getting noticeably cooler, even though we still are well to the North of the Tropic of Capricorn. But I think the whole of Australia is in the grip of a cold spell, so we are mainly glad that we are not in Canberra where it would be a degree or so cooler.

We are at Port Hedland for a couple of days. On Saturday we head off to Karijini which is going to be one of the highlights of our travel. I think I will make that part of the trip a separate blog, so I shall post this as a secondary post. Even as a mid-sized town, Port Hedland has a lot to offer, so we will spend Friday pottering about and checking the port. The empty ore-carriers are lined up beyond the horizon to fill their bellies with the red ore of the region, and we watched them from the yacht club where we enjoyed a meal of fish and chips.

I thought perhaps that my readers might like to learn more of my fellow travellers, so I will slowly introduce them, and the ways in which they endear themselves to us. We have been friends for many, many years and our starting point of interest initially was our participation in the early days of what is now Tuggeranong Uniting Church. Jen and I are still there of course. John and Anne are with the Capital Edge AOG in Canberra, and Rob and Pauline are with the Sallies at Nambour in Queensland.

They say it is better to ask for forgiveness than for permission, so I think I would like to introduce them individually by a name that seems best to characterise them. So today I would like to introduce the notion to do an Anne. For example, the other day Jenny climbed and perched herself precariously on a rock to get a slightly better picture angle. To “do an Anne” is thus to extend yourself beyond the level of comfort and safety simply because you committed yourself to that task. You will not give up, you will not retreat!

Next post we will introduce the “Priesty.”