Well, it is Tuesday and we are still in Karratha. We are waiting for a tap to put in the van and apparently it won't be here until Thursday, so we bit the bullet and decided to stay until Saturday when we will go straight to Exmouth. It is a bit far but if we get away early we should be there by mid afternoon.
Rick and Lorraine arrived on Sunday afternoon for the night. They had come from Eighty Mile Beach and had a booking at Point Samson from Monday and decided to come into Karratha to spend the night. They are spending a few days at Point Samson as there is a good mobile phone signal as they will have a new grandchild some time today hopefully.
We had a few drinks and dinner and a good catch up.
Here is a photo of the 4 of us which Rick took while we were at Derby.
On Monday we drove out to Hearsons Cove, near Dampier in the late afternoon to watch "Staircase to the Moon". It was lovely to see. The rising moon was very orange.
Last night we had a few drops of rain. Not enough to wet the ground but it is the first rain we have had since before we left home 3 months ago. Today (Tuesday) I had a much needed hair cut and then we headed back out to Dampier to have a look at the Red Dog statue. You probably know that the movie Red Dog has just been released and it was filmed all around the Pilbara region.
While out there we saw the gas ship coming into the gas plant at Dampier.
On Wednesday we decided to go for a drive around the area. We drove north towards Cape Lambert. Cape Lambert is another iron ore loading facility, but we couldn't get in as access was restricted to employees. As we were so close to Point Samson, we decided to drop in on Rick and Lorraine.They now have a new granddaughter, Madeline Patricia and Mum and baby are both very well. While we were having coffee with them, Tony and Chris pulled into the spot next door. The world is definitely getting smaller. We introduced them to each other, then we continued on our travels.
Next stop was Wickham and from here we were able to drive on a public access road through a work site and end up at Port Walcott, which is just around the headland from Cape Lambert. The work site was very busy with iron ore trains, road trains and all manner of work vehicles.
 |
| Port Walcott |
 |
| Three engines pulling iron ore train |
 |
| Iron ore train |
We got some lunch at Wickham and drove out to Cossack. Cossack was an important industrial port around 1872 and the old buildings have been preserved. It was also the centre of the pearling industry in the late 1800's until that was moved to Broome.
 |
| Cossack from the Tien Tsien Lookout |
 |
| The old Schoolhouse |
 |
| The Lighthouse |
 |
| Ship loading at Cape Lambert. Point Samson is in the foreground. |
 |
| Settlers Beach, Cossack |
Next stop was Cleaverville, which is a beautiful bush camping spot on the coast about 30km north of Karratha. There are lovely camp sites spread out along the dunes and there were about 100 caravans and campers set up. Probably worth a stay next time we are here.
Then back to Karratha where we had pre dinner drinks with Terry and Sue. (We met them crossing the Pentecost River)
It is now Friday. Our spare part didn't arrive so Ray has done a bush fix on the problem which will do us until we get to Gerladton. We are going to Exmouth tomorrow where we have booked in for 4 nights. it will be nice to have a change of scenery after 10 days in Karratha.
I will blog again from Exmouth.
