Red Dog Country

Our next stop was the Pilbara Coast, which covered many towns including Karratha, Roeburne, Cossack, Point Samson, and Dampier - made famous by the Red Dog movie.

The Pilbara is the region south of the Kimberleys between the Great Sandy Desert and the sea. And it is most famous for one thing - mining, mining, mining. From Port Hedland down to Dampier are several ports where the iron ore is shipped out to sea, where further inland are the huge mines where it is first collected and processed. Joining the two are trains that can run for about 200 carriages - not much fun if you get stuck at a railway crossing!

Port Hedland is a large port town, with the port running right through the town centre, so you could see huge transport ships off the main road. But there really isn't much more to the town than that. There is a separate section, South Hedland, where most of the population actually lives, and an industrial area.

Next stop was Roeburne, which is one of the oldest towns in this area. This was the service town for all the neighboring pastoralists who were in the area before the mining boom. It is a historical town, with many old stone buildings, but is still a functional town, although not a very large one. About 90% of the population is now aboriginal, and they run the general store and cafe, as well as a few art galleries.

Further up the peninsula, on the coast, is Cossack. This is also a very old town, but is now actually a ghost town. Initially it had the biggest port in the area, and was used to transport sheep and wool in the pastoral times. However it is very tidal and swampy, and ships could not get in very easily at some times of the year, so the port was moved up to Point Samson, with a really long jetty. After that they had a bit of a boom with pearling, but this also moved up to Broome. The next attempt was cashing in on the turtles which swim by there - and for a period it became famous for its turtle soup. That didn't last long either, and eventually they conceded defeat and let the town die. Then about 20 years ago a group of enthusiastic young people decided to dig up the ruins and restore the town. It now has a number of old stone buildings to see, and more coming up in the process. Nobody actually lives there though, but it is now the home of the annual Cossack art competition. This is currently running, so we got to see all the entrants, and the winners.

Further up the coast is Point Samson, which once had a very long jetty and was the main port of the area. That burnt down in the 70s and was never rebuilt, so it is now a small coastal village with a lovely beach. We stayed here two days to relax and enjoy the serenity.

Further up the peninsula is Port Lambert, which is a huge construction built by Rio Tinto to ship all its iron ore out to the world. We took a tour right into the bowels of the workings. We saw the great trains pulling in form hundreds of miles away, the machines that took each carriage and tipped it over, the conveyor belts that ran along delivering the iron ore to the ships along the jetty, with several more waiting out to sea. It takes about ten train loads to fill one ship, and they are filling four at a a time, then moving on to the rest. The amount of iron ore is in the thousands of tons every day.

To set up and run this huge operation two towns were created for all the people needed, Wickham to the west and Karratha to the east. They are basically just service towns with housing, shops, schools etc to service the vast amount of people needed. Everywhere you see people in high vis uniforms and huge work boots tramping around town. At Karratha they had the annual FeNaClLNG festival, named after the main three exports of the area - Fe for iron, NaCl for salt from Dampier, and LNG for natural gas from the north west shelf north of Dampier. This was like a big market, with rides for the kids, cooking demonstrations etc.

The last town we stayed at, and probably my favorite, is Dampier. This is where the Red Dog movie was filmed, although he travalled all around the area. The visitor centre and library are full of info about Red Dog, photos, newspaper stories etc. He was a real character, and we met many people who had known him personally.

Dampier also has a port where some of the iron ores is shipped. However, as we soon learnt, it was a thriving town well before the mining boom. It was discovered by William Dampier, who was actually well ahead of his time. He thought the area too dry and hostile for farming, and decreed, "This area will never be good for anything but minerals." And he was certainly right. And you can see that the whole area is full of iron ore, just from the colour of the rocks and soil. But off the coast of Dampier is also a whole lot of islands called the Dampier Archipelago. They are mostly empty, but are just starting to be developed as tourist areas, with boat cruises, fishing etc.

It seems this area breeds characters, because there was another eccentric man from here called Sam, who decided to take up residence on one of the islands, and built himself a castle there. The land officially belongs to Rio Tinto, but they allowed him to stay there and he spent his whole life building his castle by hand, made from rocks and found objects. He planted palm trees, as well as a vegetable patch, all carting water in buckets from the mainland.
To find out more click this link.
http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2011/ 09/07/3312473.htm

GeorgeY's bit

In this entry I feel sorry for rich business, meet an obscure author, and meet a local.

Rio Tinto is no doubt a rich entity. They have invested millions in massive expansion of infrastructure, and created a tsunami of jobs causing the towns to swell with contractors and FIFOs (Fly in Fly out workers). Yet no one seems to appreciate them enough. Train drivers here are paid $300 grand a year. They use clever technology in order to save money, for example these massive trucks are driverless, the rest of the site is monitored and controlled from a control room in Perth. Technology is not the only thing they need to be good at. Harder to do is workers' needs, union demands, and daily wheeling and dealing with tribal claims, on top of the normal ATO dues. Yet, some idle bum in Canberra decided to have a new tax tailored to gouge the left over when global prices went up. I wonder how much subsidy would they get if the prices plummet? (Between Zilch and the square root of squat). Good riddance Rudd and Gillard and the like.

In Roeburn Tourist Info centre we were approached by an old lady selling a book. She is the author of a basic account of her living in the area, so we had a copy and a pic with her.

At FeNaClNG festival, while Eva was looking at a quilting expo, a local lady who lived in Dampier for 44 years told me she knew Red Dog and once gave him a lift.

It is a weird set of towns. Between Cossack, Dampier, Karratha, Point Samson, Roebourne and Wicham, each town claims to have been the biggest of all at one time or another. So many booms and busts, too much speculation, and big money made and lost.

The latest boom had house prices going through the roof with a median of $1.2 million last year, and crashing to $850 thousands or less this year. Our campsite was rented from Rio Tinto to be run as a tourist park with a maximum of 3 days stay so at any stage, if they needed it back, they can have it within 3 days for the next wave of FiFos. The next boom is centered on tourism, and a few other temporary camps are waiting for a decision to lease them to an operator instead of leaving them empty and open for vandalism.

While Broome had too much serenity, this area is oozing with charm and character.