Port H

We have now been a week and a day in Port Hedland. On arrival last Thursday afternoon, we'd anticipated being here just 1 day. Glad we're not on a schedule or close deadline. Some clunking under the car revealed the front bushes on the rear springs (sorry to get technical) had 'flogged out'. Advice from the local ARB guys turned out to be wrong....you can't just fit bushes, you have to refit springs. So the first order from Perth turned up Wednesday morning....wrong parts:) But we reordered and right now, at this very moment, the Nissan is being refitted with new rear springs. Which means we should be on our way to Broome tomorrow.

It has been a blessing to have a house for the last 5 days though. We popped in to see old friends last Friday and they offered for us to come and stay...which we did from Sunday. They left on Tuesday for a 4 day family holiday in Broome, so we have had the run of the place since then. All we have to do is feed the cat. Thanks Brad and Glenda and girls....your generosity has been so very much appreciated.

Port Hedland is definitely a BIG industry town. It is home to Australia's busiest port with 300m long ships being loaded with 200 000+ tonnes of iron ore. And Australia's longest trains run between here and the mining town of Newman, again, full of iron ore. Some are over 3kms long! What all those big numbers means is that lots of locals work in industry earning big $$ and pushing rents and house prices through the roof. How about 1/2 a million for a three bedroom 1 bathroom house? Or a minimum $1500/week rent?? Crazy really.

Almost makes the high prices at home seem like nothing.

And then there was the NEXT day...

After Friday's 'greatness', Saturday started off not quite as well. We had our first tyre casualty. But we did make it to Carnarvon by later that afternoon, despite the earlier setback and hope to be able to get things fixed on Monday. BTW, it seems we don't have a puncture of the tyre, just a dented rim. Not sure which is worse, considering the cost of an alloy rim!

Do you see what we see?

What do you see in each of the pictures below? 

Have a guess and then scroll down and we'll tell you what we see:)

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

A. Opal mining operations north of Coober Pedy, SA. Each one looks just like this.....piles of mullock and a truck with a drum in the air. It's their extraction unit. In the mullock, you can 'noodle'......look for off-cast or missed opal.

B. The Beautiful Beast. We just clocked over 60 000ks on the Nissan, so that means we've done over 13 000 in 11.5 weeks....on dirt, gibber, rock, black top and through gorges, rivers and deserts.

C. Jon standing on Lambert's Centre....the geographical centre of Australia near Finke, NT. You might recognise the flagpole as a replica of a more often visited one.

D. A minor hiccup but one that caused us to change our whole itinerary. 

E. The landscape traversed by early explorer Scottish James McDouall Stuart as he tried (5 times) to find a way from Adelaide through to Darwin. Eventually...SUCCESS! And then the  Telegraph Line was put through and then a railway and then a road, opening up the way for miners, pastoralists, tourists and the rest of us. Brave man!