Roebourne and Karratha

Thursday 11^th August

Auski Roadhouse to Roebourne

From Auski Roadhouse we backtracked to South Hedland where we fuelled up and then headed south west towards Roebourne and Karratha.  After a long days travelling we got to Roebourne where we booked in for two nights.

Friday 12^th August

Roebourne

Our first port of call was the Roebourne Visitors Centre which is actually situated in the old Roebourne Jail.

From there we travelled out towards the coast to the old settlement of Cossack.  It was the original port for this whole area, but the river mouth it was situated on silted up, so it was abandoned. 

There were several old stone buildings still there which were quite interesting to look at. 

From there we drove through Wickham, which is a relatively new mining town and then through another small town called Point Samson with houses with million dollar views out over the Indian Ocean.

All these towns have sprung up because of the Iron Ore Industry.

Saturday 13^th August

Roebourne to Karratha

From Roebourne down to Karratha was only 40 km.  We saw a motorcamp on the outskirts of town, but decided to try for another one closer to town.  We got there only to find they were booked out, so we backtracked to the first motorcamp we had seen to try our luck there.  They had also been booked out, but as Christel walked into the office, the receptionist had just taken a cancellation, so we were in luck.  Later on when we went to the visitors centre, we saw on their notice board, that every motorcamp in the area was booked out, the one we were in, through to the middle of September. We were obviously in the right place at the right time.

After setting up camp we went for a drive.  Karratha is a relatively new town, again specifically built to cater for the Iron Ore export industry, and also in this area, natural gas.  The nearby town of Dampier is an export port for the Iron Ore mined at Tom Price, which like Newman is about 400 km inland.  In fact you have two almost identical operations running about 250 km apart.  Ore from Newman is railed out to Port Hedland for export, and Ore from Tom Price is railed out to Dampier for export.

The Dampier/Karratha area has the added advantage in that there are huge Natural gas Fields off shore and this is piped ashore in this area to gigantic refining plants. 

Like Motunui only heaps bigger.  We were talking to a local guy who told us over 3000 people work each 12 hour shift.  This place is absolutely buzzing with activity and development, with new roads, refining plants, housing subdivisions, and buildings everywhere.  If only we had a couple of million dollars to invest in land in this area!!

Obviously the Ore they are currently mining, and the gas they are processing, is only the tip of the Iceberg, and they are slowly gearing up for huge development.  Again housing is at a premium with rentals anything from $1500 to $2500 a week, and ordinary three bedroom houses selling from in the low $600,000s.  We saw heaps of ordinary houses in the real estate shop windows for well over $1million.

Sunday 14^th August

A day at the Beach

We had heard that there was a lovely beach called Cleaverville about 30km north of Karratha, with free camping, good fishing, swimming, and snorkelling, and decided to go and have a look and maybe spend the day there.  Access to the beach was down a 13 km metal road, but luckily this one had just been graded.  The beach stretched for about 5 kilometres with free camping areas all along it.  Wish we had known about this earlier.  Never mind, we spent a lovely day fishing swimming and snorkelling.  We were very tempted to return to Karratha and bring the caravan up and spend a few days there, but decided against it.

Monday 15^th August.

Karratha to Exmouth

From Karratha down to Exmouth is 557 km, with nothing in between except the Fortescue River Roadhouse and the Nanutarra Roadhouse.  Exmouth is on a peninsula 170km off the main west coast road. We had decided we would free camp at a Roadside Rest Area at the turnoff that leads out to Exmouth from the main road south.  This would leave us with 170 km to get up to Exmouth the next day.

As we drove south we could see these funny grey/white fluffy things in the sky ahead, and as we got closer we realised they were clouds.  The first ones we had seen since we left Alice Springs on the 21^st June.  The clouds gradually increased as we drove south until it became quite overcast, and at one stage we even got a few spits on the windscreen.  Away inland towards Newman and Tom Price it was as black as ink and it looked like they were getting a real downpour.  We also came across small puddles of water on the sides of the road.  Wow this was getting exciting. 

We stopped for fuel and lunch at the Nanutarra Roadhouse, and 100 km later got to the Roadside Rest Area at the Exmouth Turnoff.  Not the ideal place to spend the night, as it is right beside the road, fairly small and with no shelter.  Never mind, it’s only one night.