Day 31

Point Samson - Cossack - Whim Creek - Port Hedland - 80 Mile Beach

"Meet me down by the jetty landing, where the pontoons bop and spray...."

The wind picked up last night - they don't call WA windy always for nothing !
We went for a walk along the beach after breakkie but it didn't last long because of the wind.

We left Samson just before 9 and drove to Cossack, a ghost town about 15 mins away. This was one of the first pearling towns in WA at the end of the 1800's but they over pearled here and killed the industry and it moved up to Broome. The town survived until 1950 when it was abandoned all together . The ruins remain and thanks to the mining industry some of the buildings are being lovingly restored. Recently a B&B has opened in the town and it looked like receptions could be held in a couple of the restored buildings. It was a pretty town - guess that the non development of WA is actually a bonus as things just go left untouched!

Driving on we back tracked our trip from yesterday . We drove into the pub at Whim Creek only to find the road bulldozed and the pub abandoned - we were considering staying behind the pub - but that was never going to happen! The copper mine operation looks to have shut it down for a while.

We drove onto Port Hedland and shopped and fueled and had lunch by the water at the Port Authority overlooking the bulk carriers being loaded with iron ore. It's as if BHP looked at Rio's Dampier operation and said pffft - it's twice as big!! The trains from Newman to Port Hedland are 680 carriages long ( double those from Tom Price).

We watched a bulk carrier come into the port and throw a 360 turn and have the tugs push it into the loading terminal ready to be filled - and there were 2 others already there.

The other big industry being run in Port is salt mining. We saw the huge salt stacks and farms and there was a bulldozer grooming one of the stacks - it looked like a groomer at Perisher with the white hill !

Leaving Port Hedland we drove another 250 odd k's to our stop tonight at 80 Mile Beach. We just missed the sunset at the beach and had a 10k drive in the dirt to get to our stop . The road from Port was again littered with cow road kill and we saw quite a number of them just roaming about freely at the side of the road! The kids love watching the kites swooping and playing in the breeze - there are so many of them up this way - they keep hoping for a wedge tail eagle - not so many of late.

We'll go for a wander along the beach in the morning before heading to Broome for a number of days. We will be just shy of 10,000 k's by then too!