Iron Ore, Salt, Birdlife and Trains.

Lesson for today: A place for everything and everything in its place!

Port Hedland-train carting iron ore - four locomotives and over two hundred wagons. (Andrew insists that there are exactly two hundred and twenty six wagons on this train.)

Great place to visit if you are into iron ore mining, salt mining and trains. We're off to meet the locals this morning, top up the larder once more and do a bit of sightseeing before we head north on our trek to Broome. Our destination for tonight: Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park.

Rio Tinto Minerals - world's largest exporter of salt.

This morning we're having breakfast with the birds at Port Hedland.

It's a bit windy today but not too bad.

The use of steel/iron in Port Hedland is reinforced in this garden sculpture.

We pulled into Port Hedland yesterday afternoon and left our run to the caravan park a bit late. No campsites remaining so had to pay a little bit more and settle for a camper van site.

On Thursday night we spent our second night at Karijini NP but this time at the Dales Campground which is run by a different entity to the Savannah Campground. Much better signposted too!

The two campsites are separated by the most corrugated red road we've driven on yet...thirty kilometres of it! Joy.

Both Honey and I had a bad night's sleep. The weather in Karijini is quite cool but the sun still streams down – the cooling wind deceived us both and we must have been so dehydrated and probably even a little sun and wind burned. Both of us were exhausted and I was asleep by eight. Headachey and sore, we woke during the night. Then the wind picked up and Andrew decided that the tent needed adjusting, at two in the morning! Finally got back to sleep and woke to a sunny, crisp morning.

Thursday morning explored gorges and visited lookouts in the park.

If ever you are in this neck of the woods, the following are a MUST SEE:

Starting from the Weano Recreation Area:

Junction Pool Lookout

Oxer Lookout

and if your are very fit, Hancock Gorge (we didn't complete this walk)

We did complete the Weano Gorge track but didn't particularly think it was worth the effort.

Starting from Dales Recreation Area:

Circular Pool Lookout

Three Ways Lookout

Fortescue Falls

Fern Pool

Fortescue Falls and Fern Pool are an amazing place to visit. The best in Karijni is below ground level. Above ground: beautiful snappy gums, red earth like you've never seen before and buff coloured spinifex grass. Some areas are recovering from fires started by lightening strikes. And not to forget the Hamersley Ranges...but they too are polka dotted with spinifex.

DON'T wear white in Karijni! You'll end up looking like a Corella from Paraburdoo if you do!

No showers at Dales' and no water, so a quick toe to top was in order

Boy was it good to wash off two days of red dust in the shower this morning.

We left Karijini around eleven thirty for Port Hedland stopping at Auski Roadhouse for lunch and to top up the fuel tank. Followed a house-on-the-move part of the way and arrived into Port Hedland proper just in time for the peak hour traffic – all heading home to South Hedland at the end of long day in the salt mine, on the railway, pouring concrete at the Port Authority. (I found out later that these people were in fact going out to work in the fields...twelve hours on, twelve hours off.)  And of course the million and one other jobs that need doing here.