Dampier Karratha area

From Karijini we headed north into Millstream Chichester NP, a beautiful peaceful place which is an oasis in the desert.  From there we turned west for a bit of outback 4WD country, just to see what the countryside's like further from the Hamersley Range.  This took us to the mining township of Pannawonica, a smaller version of Tom Price but not as attractive (and very windy).  It was a lovely drive across here - still the fabulous red earth, spinifex and gums but more flat plains.

We then joined the coastal highway to Karratha, a purpose-built service town for the mining industry.  Not wanting to stay in a town caravan park, we drove 25km out to a coastal area named Cleaverville where there were dozens of bush camping sites.  Most were already taken by caravans (the dreaded grey nomads haha) but being in a 4WD and not towing anything, we had our pick of spots almost on the beach.  Unbelievable sunset colours!

Happy Hour at our campsite on the beach at Cleaverville

We had a good couple of days here, visiting the Rio Tinto port facilities and watching some of the loading machinery at work, seeing the iron ore carriers in the harbour, the trains carrying their loads of ore and the whole thing illuminated in the distance at night.  All of this runs 24/7, 365 days a year.

In Dampier we visited the port, saw the salt mine and today visited Woodside's massive North West Shelf gas project.  That was really interesting as we didn't know much about it.  We were able to watch a short, informative film at the visitor centre and see models of the rigs, carrier ships, processing plants etc.  It was a great way to get a bit of an understanding.

Iron ore train, all 2.5km of it, Dampier port

North West Shelf gas project, north of Dampier

While in this area we had a look around Roebourne (not much there as a newer town, Wickham, was built by Rio Tinto some time ago).  We went up to Point Samson, a nice little beachside place, then later spent some time in the historic township of Cossack.  It's being restored and there are a few very nice, solid old buildings there along with lots of information about the town's past.  It used to be the main port for this area and harboured around 80 pearl luggers at one time.  You'd never know that looking at it now!

Sent him back to school - the historic schoolhouse at Cossack

Yesterday we visited Deep Gorge on the Burrup Peninsula north of Dampier.  This is a national heritage site due to there being over a million Aboriginal petroglyphs etched into the piles and piles of rocks.  It was amazing as nothing's signposted, you just walk through the gorge and around the ironstone hills seeing artwork everywhere you look.  If anyone reading this gets Aust Geographic there was a feature on this (and Karijini) in the recent issue #120.

Oh yes, in Dampier we made sure to visit Red Dog who is immortalised in bronze.  This afternoon we left and drove through more classic Pilbara red to Onslow, out on the coast.  Tomorrow night we're catching up with Colin, an old friend of Deb's, and his partner Di for tea at the pub.  The following day we'll make our way toward Exmouth and Ningaloo Reef for a few days.