Day 35

Day 35 Point Sampson

Sorry about the delay for this page but I had to spend last night trying to organise some insurance forms and it took a lot longer than I thought and I did not feel like doing the blog, but now I do and here it is.

Today we went on the Port to Port tour, it starts in Roebourne, then goes to Cape Lambert then out to

under the conveyor belts

Loading up the stock piles

Cossack. The bus was only a 20 seater and it was full and off we went. The tour starts in the old Roebourne Jail and what a depressing place it is. It was built to house aboriginal prisoners only and a lot of those were leave takers from properties where they were treated like slave labour and they would walk off the property, but according to the land owner they had signed contracts to work for them and had reneged on the deal, for this, they were hunted down, chained up and dragged back to Roebourne to prison.

reclaimer at the stock piles loading a ship

Reclaimer in motion

Once there they were used as slave labour to build roads or buildings or anything else that needed done until they were returned to the property. Absolutely amazing!

The tour guide was a funny guy who had a particular view on what was going on. If you wanted a politically correct tour, then you would be very disappointed. Nigel was great value, no beating about the bush about his views on where funding should be spent, Fly In / Fly Out workers and their disregard for fishing rules and the environment, big mining companies and how they run the roost around here and any other subject you want to ask him about, including where you can get the best cheap food around. The Cape Lambert port is under major work to duplicate the loading and

Maureen overlooking the stock piles

conveyor belt taking ore to stok piles

handling of oar to double the output. They have duplicated the rail lines coming into town, they are building a huge bridge over the rail line into town as the more trains coming in, it would hold up the traffic too much, hence the bridge.

They have built new stockpile areas, building a new jetty for loading and all the loading equipment needed for loading 8 ships at a time on two jetties. Money has been dropped in there and I suppose they will get it back. The trip took you right into the crushing plant and next to the reclaimers that dig into the stock pile to load ships. Again, it is the size of everything that is mind boggling.

From Cape Lambert we back past Wickham where he pointed out the mess hall there where you can

reclaimer in operation close up

Old Jetty

eat for $20 a head – something we noted. On to Cossack and we went to the café there and had our lunch of a pie, a cup of tea and a lovely scone for me and a tart for Maureen. We then went for a drive around the old town site where he pointed out some interesting items. One issue he did raise was that the Shire of Roebourne are currently trying to get out of looking after Cossack and hand it back to the Heritage Commission who he thinks will close it down. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

Back from the tour, we had a quick drink with the sun downer club of the caravan site. It is a very friendly group who invite anyone walking past to join in and we have had some great discussions on where they have been and got some great advice. Following this, we then shot out to Wickham to the

Our tour group at Cossack

mess there and sure enough we paid $20 and we had the run of the hall. The food was great, there was a number of choices of hot and cold selections, fruit and deserts. If there is nothing there that you like, then they will cook you a steak or chicken or fish for you. Obviously for a one off it looked great, but I can see how it would become unattractive or seemingly monotonous before too long. It was a great dinner and we ate far too much, but went away happy.

Well that was Monday, and we intend to go to Port Hedland tomorrow (no spoiler alert, you will have to read tomorrows post).