Port Hedland and Auski Roadhouse

Friday 5th – Saturday 6^th August

Port Hedland.

162 km south of Cape Keraudren we arrived at Port Hedland, or to be more exact South Hedland.

Port Hedland is Australia’s busiest port, with millions of tonnes of Iron Ore being exported annually.  The Ore comes from about 400km inland from huge mines at places called Tom Price and Newman.  It is transported out to Port Hedland by both road and rail, where it is loaded into huge Ore Ships.

The ships are up to 320 meters long, and can carry up to 220,000 tonnes. The difference in how far they ride above water level between when they are empty to when they are full was quite remarkable.

The average turnaround time is 35 hours. This is a huge portion of Australia’s export business. 

Needless to say, Port Hedland is not pretty.  In fact everything is covered in red dust, a by-product of the Ore being transferred from trucks and trains to the huge Ore ships which are tied up at the wharf.

It is plainly evident that Australia is expecting to increase its Iron Ore exports with huge investments being made in the area.  Most of the ore is sold to China, in fact, of the seven huge Ore Tankers in Port when we got to Port Hedland, 6 of them were destined for China. The other one was heading for Japan. There are plans to more than double the ports berthing facilities, with a new off shore jetty that will be able to berth 8 ships at a time.

The Ore trains bringing the Ore in from the mines average 3.75km in length with up to 336 carriages or trucks in each train.  They are hauled by 6 locomotives in teams of 2, equally placed along the train, with only one driver for the entire train.  All the locomotives are controlled electronically by the one driver.

Each carriage holds approximately 125 tonnes of ore, with a loaded train weighing approximately 42,000 tonnes. So working on those figures, it would take over 5 trainloads to fill one ship.   The trains travel at about 65 kph, and take 3km to stop. The trip from Newman to Port Headland takes 8 hours. The World Record for the world’s longest train was broken on the line between Newman and Port Hedland in 2001, when they made up a train of 8 locomotives, and 682 carriages loaded with ore.  The train was 7.3km long, and had one driver.  You need to know this stuff.

There is also a continual stream of 4 trailer road trains, loaded with ore, pouring into the Port from all directions as well. And of course everything operates 24 hours a day.  You can imagine the dust.  There is also a salt works near the port with huge piles of salt waiting to be processed.

With all this industry, accommodation in and around Port Hedland is very much in demand.  We heard stories of workers paying anything up to $2000 a week rent for a four bedroom house.  Some workers were buying caravans, and living in them on permanent sites in the local caravan parks, as this worked out cheaper than paying rent.

South Hedland, where we are camped, is actually a residential town built 18 km south of the industrial area of the Port, to house the workers.  This has been done primarily to get the workers families away from the dust at the Port.  There are a lot of families living in the camp ground, and since we have been here we haven’t seen much of Cameron.  He is off on his bike with his gang.  It’s great for him to get a chance to play with kids again.

From here we intend to go out to either Tom Price or Newman and do a mine tour in the next few days.  Philip worked at Newman for about 9 months way back in 1986.  Newman is home to the World’s Largest Iron Ore Mine, Mount Whaleback, and hopefully we will be able to get a tour there.

Sunday 7^th August

Port Hedland to Auski Roadhouse.

Happy Birthday Philip.

We decided to celebrate your birthday by travelling from Port Hedland towards Newman. We planned to stop about halfway at the Auski (or Munjina) Roadhouse, and from there make bookings for a mine tour and to also explore the Karijini National Park.

The first 150km from Port Hedland was the usual dead flat straight roads with nothing but endless scrub land on either side.  We still haven’t got used to crossing over bridges with nothing but dry riverbeds underneath them. Probably 19 out of twenty bridges we cross are nothing but dry sandy riverbeds,

so naturally we get quite excited when on the odd occasion we cross over a bridge that’s actually got  bit of water under it.  

We met a continual stream of 4 trailer Road trains heading towards Port Hedland with their huge loads of ore.  Then we started entering hilly country with some interesting rock formations and wild flowers.

We pulled in to the Auski Roadhouse at about 11.30 and were soon set up in the campground behind the Roadhouse.  We then rang from the Roadhouse and booked a mine tour at Newman for Tuesday morning.  While we were ringing up for the tour a truck pulled in with a huge bulldozer on it. 

Obviously come from a nearby mine.  It was the biggest dozer I have ever seen.  Hopefully we’ll see more when we do the mine tour.

Perhaps it’s appropriate to explain a bit about the Aussie Roadhouses.  They are without a doubt, a lifeline for the Australian traveller.  Usually situated about 200km apart, they are a combination of a rest stop, fuel stop, mini supermarket, restaurant, bar, and quite often camp ground.  Their forecourt areas are huge, designed to cater for anything up to a dozen cars and caravans, as well as of course up to half a dozen or more Road Trains.  Apart from a slab of concrete where the fuel pumps are, the rest of the forecourt area is usually just dusty gravel. 

They are usually open 24 hours a day, and seem to be always busy.  Because they are usually in such isolated areas, they have to generate their own power.   All their prices are generally dearer than places closer to town, which is understandable, but if you need it you have to pay for it.  The more isolated they are, the bigger the range of goods they carry.  With towns anything up to 400 km to 600km apart, they are without doubt an essential part of the Australian outback.

In the afternoon we did a little tiki tour out into the nearby country side, and ended up driving down this side road leading into the ranges.  We saw some amazing rock formations and lots of wild flowers. Beautiful wild scenery.  Tomorrow, Monday, we will continue on to Newman ready for our mine tour on Tuesday.