Oz Trip - Day 123

Day 123 – 1/9/2012 – Karratha

Since arriving in Derby I had been chasing a replacement axillary battery tray to replace the one in the Pajero that had been welded up twice. After making a few calls from the Pardoo Roadhouse I managed to track one down at Karratha. So that was going to be our next destination.

First stop on the way to Karratha was Port Hedland. We were only doing a drive around the town as we weren't stopping overnight.

A salt stockpile on the way into town

We found a nice spot in the outer suburbs for a late smoko at a park called Pretty Pool.

Pretty Pool Park

The view from Pretty Pool Park

We then made our way into the town centre for a bit of a look around. There were a few beautiful old stone buildings. I am not sure if they are original or not but they certainly looked like it.

The Esplanade Hotel

We found a park in the CBD that overlooked the port so we could watch a couple of ships being loading with iron ore while we had lunch.

Park over looking the port

Iron ore being loaded

Not sure what this is suppose to mean!!

We also found that that “The Carp” had also visited the same park.

We now know that "The CARP" enjoys a bit of a rough ride :-)

On the way into Karratha we passed through Roebourne which felt like a bit of a ghost town. Most likely because it was late on Saturday afternoon.

Old Roebourne Goal and now Visitors Info Centre

Roebourne pub and main street

We checked into the Big 4 at Karratha late afternoon.  The first thing that we noticed was the number of permanent people in the park due to the housing shortage in the town.  There were a lot of hi viz workers and utes in the park.