1 March 2000

Not much to see around Port Hedland or South Hedland so came on to Karratha (190 kms SW of Port Hedland) this morning and are spending the night at Dampier about 16 kms north-west of Karratha. We found Port Hedland, Karratha and Dampier all quite depressing and drab. All are iron ore towns and exist mainly to support that industry by receiving ore from the mines and loading it onto ore carriers for shipment elsewhere. All are covered with a film of red dust, either from the ore stockpiles, or the red earth, or both. Karratha is the biggest of these towns, having quite a good-sized shopping centre with Coles, K-Mart, Woolworths all represented - even McDonalds.

Came through and detoured to some really nice places on the way down with views of both rugged, rocky coastline and sandy beaches: Roebourne, Wickham, Cossack and Point Samson - all lovely, quiet, seaside backwaters. Was suprised at the amount of residential building activity going on at Point Samson; maybe it is WA's equivalent of NSW's Laurieton, i.e. where everyone retires to.

The people at the place we are staying at in Dampier were saying a cyclone watch was current and that the men had been brought in from the oil and gas rigs off the coast. Apparently this is standard procedure when a cyclone may be building, but it should not affect us here.

Don't yet know what we'll do tomorrow. Ute is tentatively booked in for a rego inspection at 2:30 p.m. but we may yet cancel and continue south-west to Onslow and Carnarvon.