Port Hedland.

Well, we got to Port Hedland in no time after being at 80 Mile Beach. As we were comming into the town we thought that there wasn't all that much to see & do, but turns out we actually had a pretty good time there. I also spoke with my brother for the first time about what he actually did when he was working there a couple of years ago & found out & saw where he stayed. 

We checked into the Cooke Point Holiday Park in Port Hedland, un-hitched etc... Had some lunch & then we driving around & exploring. We went down to the local shopping village, the main own centre & to park across from the wharf where all the iron ore is loaded onto the ships, headed for mainly China & Japan. BHP Biliton run this operation & its HUGE! They have many Massive trains & road trains that take the iron ore from the mines up to the port where it is shipped O/S. It runs 24/7 everyday of the year!

These next two pics are of Rio Tinto mineral mine operation that goes on in Port Hedland too.

 We also went & checked out South Hedland, this town again is to basically house & support the workers & their families who come to work there. Its much nicer & newer than Port Hedland with a major shopping centre & seems to have more services there too ie. hospital. We drove around the streets & became familiar just as we did at Port Hedland. We went to a park for a bit  & we came across the aquatic centre that had a splash area, as well as a wave pool (although it wasn't working), so we decided to go & have a cool off. The water was about 30 degrees! It was nice though to get in & when we did get out we felt very refreshed. We then went to the local Coles to stock up on a few things.

Back to Port Hedland & we unpacked the wet togs & towels & the shopping. Kids had a play at the park which was only a couple of sites up from us! 

 We cooked some dinner, spoke to Poppy & Nannie Jac & after we had showers we jumped back into the car to see all the pretty lights! The view from our van was lovely so we went closer to check them out. Poor Flick was sooo tired that she fell asleep while we were out! Oh well, back to the van for a pit stop & then it was time for a well earned rest after a big day!

The next couple of pics are taken as the sun was going down looking from our van.

The next couple are of the ships at the wharf late at night.

This next pic is one we took before leaving today, its of all the ships waiting out in the ocean to come in & be loaded. We went to the info. Centre this morning to before we left & they played a great DVD on BHP's mine operation. It was so good that we wanted to buy it but you couldn't. 

Anyway, like I said in the begining, we thought we weren't going to be busy with much at Port Hedland, but we found it interesting and not as bad a place as we first originally thought. Luke I know you may disagree with me, but we were actually suprised with what we saw & what we found out!

Anyway, we moved on today to another place which I will tell you all about in good time! 

Stay well everyone! xo