22nd August
Port Hedland to Newman
Wow! What an eventful day today. We left Port Hedland early
and headed off on bitumen to Marble Bar. As we left Port Hedland we came across
a large area beside the road with termite mounds and each one had a miners’ hat
on it. Looked very funny in the middle of nowhere!
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| Miners hats on termite mounds |
Marble bar is the
hottest town in Australia, we were lucky it was a beautiful 29 degrees for us.
Not a lot there but interesting history. The town was a gold mining town
originally and early settlers thought they had found huge marble reefs but it
turned out to be jasper. There are huge reefs of jasper at Chinaman’s Pool and
when you wet the rock all the lovely colours emerge.
Beautiful coloured jasper
We went to the town look
out which is always on the hill with the water tank. Had a great view of the
dozen buildings in the town!!! There are some very old interesting ones eg the
pub where soldiers used to come in on the weekend and have a 3 course meal for
1 and half shillings, the same cost as a schooner of beer in those days. The
town was pretty wild on those days. We had an ice cream here never enjoyed one
as much yummy!!
Headed off on dirt road to Newman, a mining town.
Corrugations and dust, we had to spread out for about 15 kms to keep out of
each others dust. We heard Stan on radio say he had a blowout so went back and
he sure had.
Nev changing Stan's Tyre
So Nev, Paul and Carl changed Stan’s tyre and we were off again.
Next we heard Wendy say their window had exploded. Somehow the driver’s window
had shattered so we stopped and helped them tape it up but Paul has no visibility
out of that side now. All got to Newman very tired and hot to be told they had
no room (we were told you couldn’t book) so they stayed in the car park and we
got a spot on the park. Went to town, saw the lookout and bought Chinese for
dinner no one felt like cooking.
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