On The Road To Somewhere!!!

29th May,

Last nights discussion was about our next destination as we start to head SOUTH. This morning we are awake early so pack up and get on the road. As we leave Tom Price, Philip takes the turn northward towards Port Hedland. “Hey this is the wrong way we are suppose to be heading south”.

I politely mention this to Philip and suggest he made the wrong turn. He replies by saying “didn’t you listen to the weather report at 5am”, no I’m still asleep then. Wet wet wet. Rain storms just where we had planned to go and on these dirt roads water and red mud don’t add up to an easy drive. (We later heard that the area had up to 40mm-60mm rain and roads will be impassable). So we are heading north to Port Hedland and we have got 5 nights there. We have had no trouble getting accommodation in parks although other travellers are saying that everything is booked out. So we have 350 k to travel today. (P) We have a shovel and winch but as far as I am concerned they are for “looks” not to use unless desperate! Given our back road travel preferences I would prefer to spontaneously plan than be locked into pre planned / pre paid itineraries that force one into making bad decisions!)

So what to do on the drive north today. Let’s count the Road Trains and see what they are carrying. Once we reach Port Hedland our tally is 215 4 trailer road trains plus 6 stopped at Auski Roadhouse, 350 kilometres and 4 hours travel time. Or one road train every 1.7 klm.

The trucks carried varied loads:-

Conveyor belting, over height

Huge steel beams

Mining Equipment

Cat 11 Dozer over width

Trucks carrying trucks

Gas trucks

Fuel trucks

Ore ball crusher bowls and crusher jaws

Front end Loader

2 x 8m wide dump trucks (over width)

New Dozer 4m wide at wheels

Ammonium Nitrate

And of course multiple loads of iron ore, about 25000 tonne of iron ore,

Not to mention the Lithium and other ores also being carted.

The “Truckies” are most polite and excellent to travel with, they will call us (on the radio) to overtake when they deem it safe and will have a short discussion at times also. At 60m long, up to 210 tonne with 98 wheels and travelling at 80-90 kph they are quite a length to overtake!

(P) As well as statistical engineer and mobile photographer, Judith spends her time knitting ( and “unknitting”) it seems to be 10 stitches forward / 5 back 10 forward etc. ! I guess that her style takes longer and saves buying as much wool!

Road Travel Discussions!

Judith has always managed the home budget! She made mention that “it seems cheaper for us to live on the road than when we are at home”. Like a fool I answered “yep we are not using any electricity etc while away” the immediate rely was “ it’s more like that there are no Ebay, Gumtree, or Face Book purchases while we are on the road”! Wow I walked into that one – I must be more careful with my replies in the future!

30th May to 3rd June

A few lazy days to recover ( I may have overdone things a bit the last few days), doing a few Maintenance jobs and enjoying the scenery of this heavy duty Industrial town.

24 hours a day we can hear the background sound of Trains, Road Trains, Tug Boats and many other HD industrial machines from our campsite some 3-4 klm from the action Zone.

(If Philip can hear the background noise then it’s loud because he’s hard of hearing most of the time)!

During our stay here we have done two tours. The first one organised by the Seafarers Mission. After a very informative audio visual presentation we hopped on a bus down to the harbour for a cruise on a workman’s launch around the harbour. This certainly made us see just how large the ships are and how small an area they have to spin the ships 360 degrees to get them heading back out to sea before they are pushed into their berth by 6 tugs. As we were touring past the ships we were also doing a grocery/gift delivery of pre-ordered items to some of the international crew. The orders are sent to the Seafarers mission who purchase the items, pack them individually, then deliver to the ships. The launch noses up the the side of the ship where a masked crewman lowers a rope which is attached to the bag of goods and then its hoisted up and over the railing. Items are delivered this way as COVID has stopped crew members from leaving their ship (some have been onboard for over 18 months!. We motor past all the ships currently berthed in the harbour. 19 ships can be berthed at one time with another two berths being built in the near further. All ships are bought in and turned to face back out to sea before being berthed.

Our next tour, the following day, was a Twighlight Industry Tour, departing from the visitors centre we drove out past the Rio Tinto solar Salt Farm which covers 9000 hectares and produces 3.2 million tonnes of industrial grade salt per year. The salt stacks are clearly visible from all over town. Our Owner/Driver guide was a wealth of information, he was constantly quoting figures and statistics as he drove us around. Past the Lithium Ore (Spodumene), copper ore, fuel storage farms, and the massive Iron Ore storage areas belonging to BHP, Fortescue Metals, Hancock Prospecting and Roy Hill operation. The enormity of these operations simply can’t be described.

A few statistics and photos may help with the story.

60 trains per day = 1 every 13 minutes

580+ kilometres of conveyor belting delivering ore from trains to sorting to stockpiles to ships

Roy Hill built 2 ship berths and infrastructure $10 billion including the mine and railway.

Most Machines are autonomous and operated from Perth

Shipping channel is 20 nautical miles

14.5 metres deep

Minimum of 4 tugs per ship (6 to berth in port)

64 ships anchorages

22 days sailing from China

538 million tonnes ore per year

5500 shipping movements per year

7.4 metre tidal range

280000 tonnes of ore per ship $60-70 million per ship

60% of ships going to China

Largest Tug fleet in the Southern Hemisphere

(P) In summary a mind blowing town with incredible statistics! The whole place is red with a tinge of Iron Ore dust, (probably not a good home for an OCD “Clean Freak” but) for a boy who appreciates the finer things in life (MACHINERY) Port Hedland has been another great visit. Complimented by the Mine visits that feed the Port. Tomorrow we depart on the road to – Somewhere.

We enjoyed our tour of the harbour and told a few other campers about it. They all tried to book but were told that it wasn’t running at the moment. Next time we went down to the viewing platform the walkway to the pier was being removed. Guess that’s why the tour is not running. We were lucky enough to catch the last tour.