Port Hedland

After a good buffet breakfast, I met the French couple and donated half the contents of my gerry-can to them because they weren't sure if they would make the next petrol station before running out of petrol. Then they drove me down to the beach which was the end of the 80 Mile Beach National Park, and to a creek which may have been the Pardoo River.
Having checked out of Pardoo Station, I drove back down the dusty road to the Great Northern Highway. No vehicle passed me for 100km even though I was averaging only 100kph. I crossed a disused single-track railway which may have gone to manganese mines.
Mining road-trains went in the opposite direction as I approached South Hedland and turned off to Port Hedland after a two-hour drive.
I saw a stationary one-mile-long iron-ore train, BHP (Broken Hill) installations, and a Rio Tinto salt flat.
I checked into the Hospitality Inn, a motel just behind the seafront which was rocky with occasional mangroves.
After some lunch at a bar on the waterfront, I walked to the Don Rhodes Mining Museum which was in a park with exhibits of old machinery and locomotives. I continued on to the docks and then back along the coast. There were about twenty bulk-carriers moored out at sea. The place felt depressed with business units closed and empty beach houses covered in red dust. However, the waterfront had been landscaped from the yacht club to the Koombana Lookout where I saw a decent sunset.
I had a nice dinner at the Pilbara Restaurant at the Inn.
I'd filled up the tank on the way into town at a cost of A$1.99 per litre. It was probably cheaper in town than in the country due to the lower transport cost.
Start: 15331km. Finish: 15465km. Distance travelled: 134km.Read more