The Pilbara

Our penguin meets the The Pilbara ! Home to red dirt, extremely long ships, long long road trains and even longer trains. Many of the road trains pulled four long trailers behind. We saw a train in Port Hedland that had four engines at the front , four engines at the rear and two in the center, we estimated the trains length to be about three kilometers long -now that's a train ! a very long one in fact . You can see bulk ship carriers of massive proportions-some over 230 meters in length and carrying up to 260,000 tonnes glide through a narrow harbour entrance adjacent to the main street.
We took a drive to the mining town of Tom Price set deep in the Hammersley Ranges, it is the highest town above sea level in WA. It is a modern fully serviced town, clean with green lawned areas, lovely gums and palms. Facilities we noted were a golf course, large swimming pool, basketball and tennis courts, rugby and AFL grounds together with an outdoor cinema, a refreshing change from the surrounding red dirt.Read more