Karratha, Dampier, Roebourne, Cossack, Pt Samson – 28 to 31 May 2010

Karratha, named for the original Station that had the lease before the town was built, is an aboriginal word meaning 'soft earth'. For us it was a pit stop, where we washed out the red dust of Karajini and John got some replacement bolts from the excellent Atom bolt shop.
It is a bedroom town for the port of Dampier, named for the English buccaneer William Dampier, and the main port of Hamersley Iron [a Rio Tinto subsidiary] for export of its Pilbara iron ore. 
It also exports salt and is the service point for the vast North West Shelf Natural Gas Project and the new  Pluto liquid natural gas project.  The scale of the onshore facilities are very impressive.
Driving through Roebourne, once the administrative capital of the North West, and Wickham, a mining service town for Cape Lambert, another Rio Tinto iron ore port, we came to Point Samson a small, very up market holiday town.   It was the principal Port of the area but traffic declined when the mining companies set up modern shipping facilities at Dampier and Cape Lambert. We stayed at the Cove Camping Park, a nice modern park within easy walk of Honeymoon Cove an idyllic swimming beach. There is a nice resort with a first rate restaurant Ta Ta's.   This was the time for seeing “The Staircase to the Moon” but we think the published times were somewhat inaccurate.



 
 
Point Samson is close to Cossack, originally known as Tien Tsin, and established in 1863 as the North West’s first port for the pastoral and pearling industries. Miners heading to the Pilbara Gold Rush also passed through here. There was a large population of pearlers operating from Cossack mostly getting mother of pearl for buttons and inlays. The pearlers fished out the area and moved to Broome.

Cossack has a difficult harbour, ships could only come and go on the high tide. The harbour silted up and wasn't big enough to take the larger ships being built at the turn of the century and in 1904 a jetty was built at Point Samson and all shipping movements relocated there. Cossack is now a ghost town although it does have a cafe courtesy of the shire. The buildings remaining have been renovated and there is a historical interpretation trail.   It was fascinating to read that the ships delivering mail would bury it near the rocks  on Settler’s Beach,  carving a mark on the rock so the residents knew where to dig for their mail.

Millstream-Chichester National Park – 27 May 2010

We took the Shire road from Karijini to Millstream-Chichester National Park.

The alternative is the permit road which is maintained by the mine. The permit road is 20 minutes shorter but one is required to watch a 20 minute safety video.

The Shire Road was well maintained and the grader had just been through.   Millstream-Chichester NP is along the banks of the Fortescue river.

Along the river lies the Millstream Oasis with a string of deep spring fed pools which come from an underground aquifer. This water supplies water for many towns in the Pilbara.
Originally some of this National Park was Millstream Station and nearby is the Jirrndawurrunha Pool. The original Station house is still there and is used as a visitors centre.  The Kitchen nearby was constructed by a local, who while doing a good job was slow.  The boss discussed speeding up and he quit, delaying the project even further.

In its hey day Millstream Station covered one million acres and carried 55,000 sheep and held the Australian record for the highest price paid for a fleece.

In 1980 the lease was resumed by the Government for its water reserves and part of the lease was incorporated into Millstream-Chichester N.P.
We camped at Millyanha Campsite.   On the drive from Millstream we visited nearby Python Pool, which must be spectacular when the water flows over the falls. 

Karijini National Park – 20 to 26 May 2010

From Tom Price we drove to Karijini National Park where we camped at the Eco Resort. This has permanent tents with bathrooms which function as hotel rooms. It has a restaurant and a small bar. There is a permanent tent site for bus tourists and there is a camping site for campers like us. This has flush toilets and showers which is exceptional for such a remote setting.  We met our friends Bill and Jane there and explored the gorges with them.  

Dales Gorge, Circular Pool, Fortescue Falls, Fern Pool 

 

Rio Tinto Gorge and Hamersley Gorge

Kalamina Gorge

The easiest climb and the prettiest gorge, looking like a Japanese Garden

 

Weano Gorge-Handrail Pool

   

Joffre Gorge

 

Hancock Gorge- Ladder and Spider Walk

                               

 

Karijini Park

Tom Price – 19 May 2010

From Exmouth we drove to Tom Price  located in the Pilbara, near the Hamersly Range. The Pilbara is the heart of Australia’s iron ore mining and  Tom Price is a key mine, owned by Rio Tinto. 

The town was named after Thomas Moore Price, Vice President of Kaiser Steel who played a major role in opening up the area.

He is reputed to have said he would take the dust from Tom Price as it was so rich in iron. Tom Price is the most affluent non metropolitan area in Australia as the miners are paid so well.

In common with all mining towns there is a nice caravan park with good water and grassy, shady sites at the foot of Mt. Nameless.   Mt. Nameless is “the highest 4wd accessible mountain” in Western Australia. 

Tom Price is the gateway to the Karijini National Park and we went on to Karijini to meet our friends Bill and Jane from Melbourne.  We all returned to do a mine tour of Tom Price mine run by Lestok Tours.       

Exmouth and Cape Range National Park – 16 to 18 May 2010

Exmouth is a relatively new town, established in 1964 to support the Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt, which uses a huge set of radio masts to provide very low frequency radio transmissions to Australian and US submarines in the Indian and Western Pacific Oceans.

It is close to nearby Cape Range National Park and the Ningaloo Marine Park

Some small towns, rather than the usual glossy brochures, provide a list of things to do in the area. Exmouth produced a list of 25 things to do in the area, with a map keyed to the 25 items.

We visited Charles Knife and Shothole Canyons, Pebble Beach, the marina and the Exmouth Fish Company (MG Kailis), allowing us to add the Big Prawn to our list of bigs. The prawns in Exmouth are totally fresh off the boats at 8.00 a.m.

The local shopping mall although small has two competing IGA supermarkets, one on each side of the street.

We drove to Cape Range National Park passing the local lighthouse point [under restoration and wrapped in plastic] and the 1907 wreck of the “SS Mildura”.

In addition to the usual National Park visitor centre, the Park provides a fascinating cruise of Yardie Creek which allows an easy exploration of Yardie Gorge. The Ranger was very knowledgeable and gave good descriptions of the wild life and geology. We saw the local community of black footed wallabies, the Osprey and Sea Eagles nests perched on the gorge walls and the more common Corella's and Egrets. Yardie Gorge is the point where tropical and temperate zones intersect, with mixed communities of red mangroves [tropical] and silver mangroves [temperate].

The Ningaloo Reef continues the full length of the North West Cape, and we stopped at a number of beaches, before snorkeling the Drift Loop in Turquoise Bay. This is a great snorkel along the inshore reef, inside the fringing reef, but the currents are strong and there is a gap in the reef. You need to be alert to return to shore at the right point so you don't wash out to sea. We swam into the current. When we had finished we allowed ourselves to drift onto shore.