Day 37

Day 37 Port Hedland

I was talking in my blog about the mistreatment of aboriginals in Cossack way back and you go well that was a long time ago, who would know or be impacted on it, well, let me tell you who. A good

Rail worker wearing his boots

 

friend, Andy Bleach’s wife Bianca, is part aboriginal and believe it or not, great grand mother was born in a relationship between an Irishman and an aboriginal lady who was promised by the man to get all his assets and property when he died, but when he did, the police came in and took it all as aboriginals could not own property!! The child (great Grandmother), was taken away and sent to Northam to one of the missions and by and by along came Bianca, so not a totally bad outcome! I hear you say “no way”, yes “way”. Totally amazing. Too small a world. It reminds me of a story I should have added when we were at Cleaverville. I mentioned we met a couple from Tasmania and they had a 2 Year

Old Farm and industrial equipment

Old Mason with them, we were chatting to them and they mentioned that Mason liked Pepper Pig, at which point his eyes lit up, I then said “well I met Pepper Pig the other day in Tom Price at the festival there, he could not believe it, here was a grown man saying he had seen Pepper Pig in person, he could not have been more impressed if I had said that I had lunch with the Pope, which is understandable, as a 2 year old possibly did not know who the Pope was. He was beside himself and suddenly speechless, much to his mum’s delight.

Anyhow, we started the day a little low key, it was to be 35c today so we did not intend to do too mu

An Ex Snowy Mountain Haul Truck

Original scoop

ch running around in the heat. We thought we might catch one of the ships coming in to show how close to the shore they are but we were not in luck, the next one is due in at 9pm so too late for pictures. We went and had coffee in an old train carriage in town called the “Silver Star”. It is an American train sent out here all silver and shinny. We walked over the little museum, but is was shut. They have all these brochures about what to do and where to go but they don’t have times and everything closes at different times, very frustrating.

We did stop at a mining museum site with lots of old mining gear, even a very old Haul Pack- have a

Old Drilling Machine

Ex Valintine Tank turned into dozer

look at the pictures. Amongst all the equipment and trains there is a statue commemorating the Torres Strait Islanders who came here as labourers on the train line. They laid all the original rail lines back in the late 60’s. the statue is of a worker with a pair of boots around his neck. Our guide back in Roebourne is married to a daughter of one of these workers and he mentioned this statue and explained it. Apparently when they were brought in to work and they were all bare foot. This was fine by them but a manager visited them on site one day and noticed that they were bare foot so he ordered boots for them all. When they arrived the manager took them all out to the workers and said they all had to

Super Beaver Truck

Old Rail equipment and water tank

wear them and drove off. They guys tried the boots but they were all too small, none fitted their huge feet, so to keep the boss happy, they tied the laces together and hung them round their necks and that is how they worked with these boots around their necks!

The site has a swag of old equipment from the original time of the port and developing mines. There is an old valentine tank that was converted to a bulldozer. There is an original Haul Pak type truck that was originally used on the Snowy Mountain Scheme, another ex-Snowy is a huge truck called a “Super Beaver”.

We drove around town taking in the sites and eventually drove up to a lookout – Koombana Lookout to be precise and looked out over the harbour entrance. The day was heating up so a long drive back

Pilot boat going into harbour

Train Cafe

in the car with the aircon on was welcome. Back at Girt Maureen swung into action. One thing we had forgotten to do was switch on the fridge yesterday ( I think we were dazzled by having a camp kitchen fridge right next door) and some of our meat had defrosted so it was time for a cookup. Maureen cooked up what we needed to and put away for lunches and future meals whilst I contemplated my navel. With my work done, we went down to the pool at the camp site and cooled off.

Train Cafe

Low Tide Cooke Point

Right now I am sitting writing this after we sat down and made plans for the next few days, which is not a bad idea since we are leaving tomorrow morning and I was wondering where I was going to drive to. So here is the plan, tomorrow we leave here and drive to Eighty Mile Beach, about 240 km. We will be there for a day or two, maybe three, then we drive to a place called Barn Hill Station about 200 kms from Eighty mile and about 150kms South of Broome. I expect we will be out of internet range for about a week, so do not be surprised if there are no posts for a while. I will keep track and do them as soon as we reach civilisation again.

While in town today we went to an art gallery where there was an art competition. I couldn’t decide which painting to vote for so I voted for one and Drew voted for the other!!! I hope he likes the one he voted for! Whist driving around town I spotted a little shop front which said Emporium and looked to be a survivor from years back. In I went and it widened out into an Aladdin’s cave containing just about everything and I mean everything. Plastic flower, Buddas , GUESS handbags purses jewellery etc, art stuff (Like Jacksons) paper products like Pestige etc camping and fishing gear, and a huge furniture section. Just about anything you need it had. Reminded me of an up market   and tidier version of Hardies supermarket in Sanur.  It had a huge range of sticky spots so did think of you all back at school!!!!!

Me doing this blog