Broome and Derby and the Kimberley region

When we leave Karijini the next place to stay is Port Hedland, a large port from which much of the iron ore from Newman and Tom Price is shipped overseas.  More info about Newman  The high quality ore arrives at Port Hedland by trains which stretch over several kilometres in length. Info about Tom Price

Being a large Port, Port Hedland is a large sprawling place, rail yards with shunting facilities for those long, long trains which seem to take up quite a large area on the outskirts.  There is also Sea Salt Mining with large evaporation lakes near a storage facility where mountains of white salt are visible from a long distance away.  If it wasn't hot one could almost believe the stuff was snow.

Barn Hill at sunset

I leave the following morning while Eckhard and Suki have to attend to personal stuff with their vehicle.  I drive to Eighty Mile Beach, about 8km of dirt road from the Highway, but well worth the drive.  The campground has been hit by a cyclone, back last December.  The trees have all been stripped and needed to be cut back so they could recover.  The place now looks quite bare compared to last year when I came through in August.  According to a Local Person windspeeds of 300km/h have been recorded, in fact, a large shipping container has been blown by the cyclone for several kilometres.

The white sand on that beach is beautiful as I remember from my last visit.  I am spending 3 days relaxing, my friends arriving after 2 days.  When we leave we follow the Coast Highway and spend the next 2 nights at a rest area, under the shade of a large tree.  Fellow travellers, Trish & Lenny have invited us to come to their campfire where we spent a delightful evening with many a yarn being spun...

Rock Formation at Barn Hill Beach

When we leave its just about 70km up the highway then 9km of dirt to the coast again where we put down at Barn Hill for another 2 days.  More...