PERENJORI AND COOROW, MORE WILDFLOWERS

We left Morowa and travelled the short distance to Perenjori, checking in to their sole caravan park fairly early to avoid the mid afternoon rush. We found all of the caravan parks in the wildflower area to be of a good general standard and we had no trouble getting a site without booking ahead, generally staying in each town for two or three days. Incidentally, you won’t find many of these parks in the caravan directories – it’s best to go online.

The first place to visit in Perenjori (as in all others) was the visitors information centre where we armed ourselves with local maps of likely wildflower hot spots and chatted to the very friendly person on duty. Many of these people are volunteers and they do a wonderful job. The only disappointing tourist information centres are generally those run by councils using council employees – they are generally interested only in gaining commissions from tour operators and accommodation providers.

We found that the numbers and variety of wildflowers in WA in September are truly amazing. While the wildflowers are not everywhere, (bearing in mind that these are largely agricultural areas) there are many areas where the wildflowers go on as far as the eye can see.

It is a bit difficult to accurately portray the extent of wildflowers by photo, but the pics with this blog will give you a good idea.

Enjoy!!!

NEXT. PERTH and turning the corner towards home. 

Wildflower Season in Western Australia

Wildflower Season in Western Australia

Everybody has been telling us that this is the best wildflower season in WA since 1994, the principal reason being the widespread rains throughout winter. The wheat growing areas also seem to be having a huge year. Vast hectares of canola are also brightening up the countryside with huge swathes of bright yellow set off against the wheat and other crops.

We travelled from Geraldton to Mullewa in our first foray into wildflower country. The Mullewa Wildflower Festival was on in the town hall.  The hall had been lavishly decorated with cut wildflowers including (incredibly) a couple of dug up wreath flowers. Even though the display was supposed to last for a week, the flowers were already beginning to look a little limp on the second day. The variety on display was excellent, with many native orchids I was seeing in the flesh for the first time. Were really impressed by the wreath flowers and decided to track down some specimens in the wild at the earliest opportunity.

That opportunity was to arise a couple of days later when we moved to Morowa, just a little further down the road. The really helpful and enthusiastic lady volunteer in the tourist information centre was armed with maps of reported sightings of wreath flowers and the location of the best wildflower displays including a variety of native orchids, so off we went.

The wreath flower (Lechenaultia macrantha) is not exactly rare, but is probably best described as uncommon. Its range is confined to a relatively small area from Shark Bay to Mullewa, Paynes Find and Murchison. The flowers like to grow in woodland areas particularly in disturbed soil, so they are often found after grading and clearing, on roadsides, along railway lines and especially in gravel pits.

We travelled about 40 Km out of town to a reported sighting and we were not disappointed.  At this roadside location there were between 30 and 40 wreath flowers, nearly all in full bloom, some up to 40 cm across, an outstanding display.

The locals around Morawa are very proud of the fact that the wreath flowers grow in their area. I was driving slowly along the shoulder of the road looking for the flowers when I was passed by a local driving at speed. He disappeared around a bend and then turned around and came back and gave me the correct location that turned out to be just a bit further up the road – very friendly, helpful folk!

Having photographed the wreath flowers from just about every angle and stood and looked at them for quite a long time we reluctantly moved on to find Canna, a location with an outstanding display of many types of native orchids. I have seen pictures in my various orchid books of many of these specimens and here they were in abundance. I could write a blog on orchids alone. I will include just a small number in the pictures in this blog.

NEXT BLOG, MORE WILDFLOWERS

SHARK BAY / DENHAM TO GERALDTON

It was with mixed feelings that we left the warmth of Denham and the delights of Shark Bay, headed further south across the 28^th parallel and officially left the north west of Western Australia.

It’s about a 400 Km run from there through to Geraldton so we decided to stop at a free camp at the Murchison River for the night. It was another pleasant afternoon chatting with some other travellers and swapping tales of good caravan parks (and the not so good!) and service station operators with reasonably priced fuel who were not intent on ripping travellers off.

There are quite a few stations / truckstops on the travellers’ “no go” or “use only as a last resort” list including once again the infamous Nanutarra Roadhouse on that very long stretch between Karratha and Carnarvon that we managed to avoid completely this time because we spent a couple of days at Onslow and filled up there at a reasonable price.

THE Nanutarra Roadhouse consistently charges far in excess of a reasonable price for fuel. We expect to pay a bit more because of the remote location and the fact that they have to run generators for power etc. etc. but Nanutarra always manages to charge very much over the expected.

We ran into quite a bit of wind on the run into Geraldton and the going was fairly tough heading directly into it. Then, to make matters much worse, I felt a fairly significant loss of power.

I diagnosed it as either the air mass regulator or a partially blocked fuel filter brought about by a load of dirty diesel (I have had some experience with air mass problems previously.) It was a struggle to maintain any sort of reasonable speed and I was pleased to make Geraldton with no further trouble, although the engine warning light came on a couple of times.

Thankfully, there is a Nissan dealer in Geraldton and they diagnosed the problem as a faulty air mass sensor. That was fine, although (of course) they didn’t have the requisite part, and it was Friday, so we were forced to stay a little longer than planned. It saved me a little time in one respect because I was able to get the 140,000 Km service done there instead of Perth as planned.  Fortunately the dealer gave me a courtesy car for the five days so we were still able to explore the area.

Geraldton is quite a nice city and the surrounding areas were beginning to display some spectacular wildflowers.  I think my next blog will be all wildflowers.

Geraldton has a strong connection with HMAS Sydney, the ship having visited there a number of times before its loss to the German raider Kormoran further up the coast nearer to Carnarvon.

The HMAS Sydney memorial at Geraldton is outstanding. Built of the finest materials, with excellence of design and containing sculpture and construction of an extremely high standard, the memorial is situated on a hill overlooking the city and looking out to sea.

The dome covering the sanctuary is made up of 645 seagulls, one for each member of the crew that lost his life in the sinking of the Sydney by the German raider Kormoran on the 19^th of November 1941. The dome covers a podium constructed of a ship’s propeller that serves as a wreath laying altar.

An unforgettable feature is the statue ”the waiting woman” near a depiction of the prow of the Sydney. They are both very powerful images. The waiting woman is leaning into the wind, gazing anxiously towards the sea and the horizon. According to the sculptor’s explanation, the woman represents the all-encompassing “waiting woman” grieving for their menfolk. Once you see this memorial, you won’t forget it.

NEXT BLOG; INTO WILDFLOWER COUNTRY. 

CARNARVON and SHARK BAY / DENHAM

The trip from Giralia to Carnarvon was uneventful, but there were quite a few stops along the way to have a look at the increasing numbers of wildflowers along the roadsides. All the WA locals we speak to tell us that this should be a really good year for wildflowers right across the state because of recent rains, so we have that to look forward to.

One jarring note occurred when we re-crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, this time heading south.  We were not all that happy about the prospect of heading towards the cooler weather, but the time has come to head towards Perth. Carnarvon was the first stop.

The Carnarvon area produces a fairly large percentage of WA’s veggies and large farms dot the landscape close to town. The supermarkets have a lot of fresh local stuff including local bananas. I can’t understand why local bananas from just up the street still cost over $13 a kilo, a price similar to that charged for Qld bananas after the floods etc., sounds like a rip off to me and it’s hardly surprising that no-one seems to be buying them!

Carnarvon is a major centre for the fishing industry and it was nice to have a couple of nice seafood lunches, makes a change from focaccias and ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches.

There’s a few things to see near Carnarvon. Naturally there’s a Saturday market albeit a little small, but a market nonetheless. A drive out to the blowholes is a must even though they’re about 60Km out of town. The blowholes are, as expected, naturally formed passages in the rocks where the action of the waves forces spouts of water to shoot up into the air…. fascinating.

As the sign at the blowholes says “King Waves Kill and it’s easy to see how rock fishermen could easily be dislodged by large waves. There were a couple of large waves while I was looking around the area and I did manage to get a couple of pics of the splash behind the Patrol… impressive.

Just along from The Blowholes is a local memorial to HMAS Sydney, lost with all hands on 19^th November 1941 near there.

On that day HMAS Sydney, a light cruiser had a fatal engagement with a German raider, the auxiliary cruiser HSK Kormoran. There are various theories as to why the captain of the Sydney allowed his ship to come so close before properly identifying the Kormoran as a warship rather than a merchantman, it was to be a fatal mistake (if that’s what happened).

In any event, the Sydney was lost with all 645 crew perishing. Some German survivors were picked up at Red Bluff, not far from the site of the memorial. Some debris from the Sydney also washed ashore in this vicinity, but the location of the ship itself was not discovered until very recently.

We spent a little more time than planned in Carnarvon waiting for some mail to arrive, but once we received that it was off to Denham for a couple of days of beach time.

 

Denham was again fairly busy and we had to spend a couple of nights in an overflow area without power or water before we could move into the caravan park itself. We really have no problems doing that, we carry plenty of water, enough for a few short showers if staying in the bush and the battery power is sufficient to run all of our lighting and our inverter takes care of the TV / video player. During the day our solar panels also allow use of a fan powered via the inverter if the weather gets a bit hot and, of course we still have the generator to fall back on if we need the aircon Iit’s a tough life!!

The Denham / Shark Bay council has done very well with general signage and with the little things that tourists like. Unfortunately you can’t legislate for good or even adequate coffee and the general standard of coffee here was quite poor – more like hot weak coffee flavoured milk L. Once again I rued the day that I decided to leave my treasured  De Longhi coffee machine at home.

The foreshore areas are nicely grassed with plenty of seating and playgrounds for the kids and lots of picnic areas and places to just sit and admire the view. For fishermen (or fishers if you want to be politically correct) there is a state of the art fish cleaning table in stainless steel with positions for about eight people, running water and bins very near at hand. As a consequence, the table is always clean and tidy for the next person.

We were at a bay nearby to Denhan and I think we discovered why it is called Shark Bay, have a look at the picture!!

About 20 Km out of town is Eagle Bluff, a large, well constructed, elevated walkway allowing viewing of some of the nearby seagrass meadows and patrolling sharks. The area is also the home of quite a few dugong. The walkway provides a view of the bay and in the far distance, a mountain of salt at the Dampier salt facility as well as the promontory leading to Steep Point, the westernmost point in Australia.

Many beaches on Shark Bay are of shells instead of sand. There are uncountable billions of small white shells. At the aptly named Shell Bay nearby the shells have been naturally compressed and are able to be cut into blocks. In the past, buildings have been made from such blocks, including one of the local churches.

Little Lagoon, a 4wd friendly picnic spot not far north of Denham is another place where the beaches are of billions of shells rather than of sand. This area is a haven for sea birds

Monkey Mia is about 25 Km north of Denham, famous for its visiting dolphins. We had been there once before and were very underwhelmed by the experience. I believe that the whole dolphin thing is very over managed by National Parks or CALM or whoever the authority is. We didn’t go there this time.

Denham on Shark Bay is a very pleasant and relaxing part of the world even though it’s about 130 Km in from the main highway and, of course, the same distance back to the highway.

Next stop, down across the 28^th parallel to wildflower country.

Giralia Station then on to Carnarvon

I suppose I should apologise for general slackness in not putting out a blog for two weeks…………….I thought about it………….no….!     :-D

We like Giralia Station. It’s certainly not flash, but it’s always interesting. This time it was a little more crowded with the addition of a number of road workers occupying the donga type accommodation, but they were an interesting, hard-working mob of blokes who started early and finished late and worked three weeks at a time.

Giralia used to be a huge sheep station but the lease has run out or has been revoked and it is now owned by Conservation & Land Management or Dept Environment & Conservation or one of that lot, although the previous owners still operate the homestead area and surrounding buildings as a station stay. There is a track that runs 30 Km or so to end at a couple of bays that are at the bottom of the Exmouth Gulf. The scenery is interesting and the fishing and crabbing seem good – our neighbours this trip caught quite a few large mud crabs in the week we spent there.

During one drive to the bay I had an interesting encounter with an Australian Bustard, a large bird that stands more than 100 Cm high. I spotted one in the scrub near the dirt track we were on and followed it on foot for some distance. The bustard often looks like E.T. in the bush!

 Bustards are not as common as they once were due to the predations of foxes and feral cats. They were often shot for food because of their size (another of their common names is plains turkey). I have previously found that the bustard can be fairly inquisitive and if you follow them slowly in a non-threatening manner and talk softly to them or just cluck or whistle they will just keep walking and watching. If you speed up, so will they and if they perceive you as a threat they will just take off. They have a wing span of about two metres and it takes a bit of a run up and a bit of effort to take off. On this occasion, after allowing me to follow for 50 or 60 metres this one took off and flew to join another three in the general area. I shot a couple of reasonable pics. The pic of the full view of the bustard was taken at Giralia on our last trip in 2008.

 The bays on the bottom of Giralia Station in the Exmouth Gulf are fairly remote at about 30 Km from the station and the only visitors are generally guests at the station who don’t mind a bit of dirt track and a bit of dust on their 4wds. The creek at the end of one bay is a good boat launching site as well as a favourite site for turtle watching, with quite a few medium to large turtles to be seen. The beaches are good for shells as well as being excellent for a wander. I would think that the likelihood of their being sharks in the general area is fairly high.

My neighbours came across a turtle on its back in the mangroves. It looked to be done for, but a dousing with water seemed to revive it so they righted it and carried it to the waters edge and it eventually swam slowly away.

Giralia was a week of doing not very much and we had a very relaxing and pleasant time. Like I said previously, it’s not flash and there’s power only for about three hours in the morning and about four or more hours in the evening but it is very peaceful.

Our next stop was to have been Exmouth, but those Exmouth parks willing to take dogs were either booked out or had been the subject of some very bad reviews on some of the websites I read.  Yardie Creek out of Exmouth had some appalling reviews based on travellers’ recent experiences with the staff so we decided to give Exmouth a miss completely.

We considered a week at Coral Bay, just down the road, but like Exmouth it was booked out. The Bayview caravan park at Coral Bay is happy to take dog owners’ money, but we found in our last visit that it treats dog owners  like second class citizens, putting them all together at the back of the park.  They eventually rang me back offering only two nights in two week’s time, but in a new low for caravan parks, wanted to charge $2 per night for the dog, so we elected to give Coral Bay a miss as well, deciding to spend a couple of days at Carnarvon and then put in some beach time at Denham / Shark Bay.

Next stop, Carnarvon then Denham / Shark Bay.

 

Robe River and new and old Onslow

Cossack was worth exploring a second time and before we left Point Sampson we spent some more time looking at the government buildings that have been preserved and looking at some of the interpretive signs around the old town. The Roebourne Art Prize exhibition was in progress at the old bond store and in a number of the other buildings. The prize money on offer was quite substantial and the entries came from far and wide, in excess of a thousand entries were on display and we spent some time admiring some of the works.

The old Cossack court house is also open and worth “a gold coin donation” – although there were some people (of course) who just visited and looked and didn’t donate. These will be the same people who will complain in future that there is nothing to see!!

I had noticed that I had not included photographs of some of the old buildings at Cossack or Roebourne in previous blogs, so I have included some shots of some of them. We also found and photographed some Sturt desert pea growing on a beach at Point Sampson – quite a way from the desert!

Having mooched around the Roebourne / Cossack / Point Sampson / Karratha area for about three weeks enjoying the excellent weather it was area time to hit the road once again and move slowly south.

After a final visit to Karratha to buy a week’s worth of food and to refuel, we headed down the highway for only 150 Km or so to a free camp at Robe River. We managed to find a very nice spot right on the river right next to a large tree full of budgerigars. The budgies entertained us for the afternoon, chattering away as they popped in and out of their nests in the numerous hollows in the tree.

As well as the budgies there were numerous white-plumed honeyeaters in the large tree and in the surrounding smaller trees. At one stage during the afternoon all of the birds quickly flew away or fell completely silent as what I believe to be a grey falcon firstly flew overhead and then flew into the large tree, hunting for food. It didn’t take long for the falcon to discover a white-plumed honeyeater’s nest and we were rained with feathers as the unfortunate occupant became the falcon’s evening meal. In a nearby tree a pair of black faced cuckoo shrikes were busy feeding  some small chicks and I was able to get a couple of reasonable shots.

We left Robe River reluctantly and headed south once more to Onslow, a coastal village about 80 Km west of the highway where we decided to stop for a couple of days. Onslow has been a somewhat sleepy backwater, known for its Dampier Salt mining / loading facility and, to a lesser extent, some fishing industry and it is also known as a support base for a number of offshore oil and gas projects. The platforms are visible on the horizon as is some sort of storage facility on a nearby low lying island.

The Mackerel Islands are not far off shore, quite a good fishing spot by all accounts and the Monte Bello Islands are also not far away. Those people of our vintage will remember the Monte Bello Islands at the site of some atomic testing in the late 50’s.

There is a buzz of activity around Onslow at the moment with work beginning on a new site near Old Onslow, site of the original town. Some of the workers setting up the site told me that they will be there until Christmas and the site, when opened will employ a couple of thousand people.  Andrew (Twiggy) Forrest of Fortescue Metals was mentioned as the prime mover of this site so anything is possible.

 

Onslow was originally situated near the mouth of the Ashburton River. We should remember that, for many years, there were no roads to speak of in this part of the world and most transport was carried out using coastal shipping, the well-known State Ships fleet, used to transport people, stock and produce to and from many small coastal towns.

Old Onslow was established in 1885 to support the pastoral industry and it also became a base for pearling luggers. The government provided a lot of infrastructure with a hospital, doctor’s residence, magistrate’s house, police station, court house and gaol. As was the problem in many towns established near the mouths of large rivers, silting began to cause problems and in Onslow’s case led to the building of another jetty nearby.

Onslow’s problems became more serious after damage from a cyclone in 1909 and successive cylcones shortly after. It was then decided to build a deep water point at Beadon Bay about 40 Km up the coast and Onslow was moved to this new site in 1925. The only buildings now remaining at Old Onslow are the old gaol and police station. The walls show some evidence of being visited by members of the RAAF, maybe there was a camp nearby during WW2

There was some wartime activity near Onslow during the Second World War and it was bombed by the Japanese at one point, becoming the southernmost point of mainland WA to be bombed.

NEXT STOP GIRALIA.       

  

Roebourne and Point Sampson: Staircase to the moon, petroglyphs, very big trains, ships and wildflowers.

We might have to add to the name of this blog. Maybe it should be called TJ’s Sunday blog that seems to be the day that most of them get published.

As I touched on in my last blog, we have settled in this area for a couple of weeks, firstly in Roebourne and now in Point Sampson, enjoying the warm weather (28 to 30 degrees each day) and the cool nights. It’s absolutely not the Gold Coast or Noosa or Broome and that’s what we like – a relaxed lifestyle in an excellent caravan park, nice neighbours, good weather, and plenty of great natural attractions to explore.

The Cove Caravan Park at Point Sampson is one of the best we’ve stayed in; we first stayed here three years ago. It’s architect designed with spacious sites, excellent landscaping, nice green lawns, a great camp kitchen, a rec room, a barbecue get-together area and well above-average facilities. It’s thankfully not like a Big 4 park with stuff we don’t use like a swimming pool, spa, jumping pillow etc. it’s just a nice comfortable park.  We don’t make a practice of booking ahead but we do for this park. We like it here.

The staircase to the moon expedition was a laugh. I set up near the Cossack lookout, sitting in the prickly spinifex well away from a gaggle of young and old spectators who somehow thought they could take photos of the event on their fancy smart phones and on their digital cameras…..wrong.  The only effect they had on my efforts was that their flashes kept going off as I was trying to do my time exposures. At least I managed to get a couple of reasonable shots between their flashes!

WARNING, the next section is a bit of a lecture on petroglyphs, with some editorial comment!

Karratha is about 40Km down the road from Roebourne and Dampier is another 20 Km or so further.

Just down the road from Karratha heading towards Dampier there is a turnoff to the Burrup Peninsular and then another turnoff to the right to Hearson Cove. Just before Hearson Cove there is a nondescript dirt track leading off the gravel. About 150 metres along the dirt track there are some small, old and faded signs indicating that there are some aboriginal engravings in the area. This is a slight understatement; experts believe there could be up to 1,000,000 engravings in the general area. The signs have been placed by the “Department of Aboriginal Sites”, more of them later.

I have done a little reading on these engravings, called petroglyphs and it makes an interesting story. The following stuff is largely plagiarised from “Making Their Mark: Pilbara rock art” by Roz Hagan taken from “Landscope” a publication by CALM WA from 2006

The big piles of large irregularly shaped red rocks that hold the engravings are granophyre.  According to Geoscience Australia, granophyre is defined thus “Granophyre, commonly porphyritic; remelted granite. Formerly referred to as "Dampier Granophyre". Intrudes along the basal unconformity of the Fortescue Group; intrudes the Hearson Monzogranite outcrops along the Burrup Peninsula and Dampier Archipelago islands.

The areas of granophyre rock on which the local indigenous peoples, the Yaburara and possibly their close relations the Ngarluma engraved these petroglyphs look just like rubble piles left over from mining activity, but the stacks / piles are all naturally formed and similar piles exist right throughout the Pilbara.

The site was originally Dampier Island, part of the Dampier archipelago, named by the Yaburara peoples “Marujuga” meaning “hip bone sticking out”. It was not convenient to those developing the area for it to remain an island so, in the 1960’s, a causeway was built to give access to the area so an ore loading facility  and a new town (Dampier) could be built.  

The following are my thoughts only

I get the impression that the powers that be in this area are a little embarrassed at their past poor protection of the area and the removal of many of these petroglyphs; perhaps that’s why their presentation is still fairly low key these days. Here is my theory. The Department of Aboriginal Sites was probably put into place to ensure that Conservation and Land Management (CALM) or their predecessors were not able to protect the site from disturbance and development, so the ore loading facility and gas hub could be built, well, that’s my theory!

There are up to 1,000,000 (yes, that’s one million) petroglyphs and some are thought to be up to 18,000 years old. Many, of course, are very faded. Some engravings were noticed by those looking at the site as an ore loading facility in the 1960’s but luckily it was decided to build the facility at Dampier, a little further down the road.

 The petroglyphs were also noticed by those charged with building the nearby North West Shelf gas processing facility in the 1980s but this time they  actually moved some 1,800 of the engraved boulders and placed them in a compound near Hearson Cove, thus removing them from their historical context and restricting access to them. I guess that’s progress!!  Clearly the area was not adequately be protected by the Department of Aboriginal Sites. End of my theory.

That was a pretty big call, considering the rocks themselves were probably formed between 2,500 and 3,600 million years ago when the earth’s crust was still very young.  I understand that this area represents one of the world’s best preserved fragments of ancient continental crust – one of the earth’s earliest continents.

The petroglyphs served a variety of purposes for the Yaburara people. Some are believed part of “increase” sites for particular species or events. The indigenous people though that depicting animal and plant species in this way ensured their survival for the future and the continuity of the seasons. Other petroglyphs relate to ancestral creation beings, spirit figures, ceremonies and rites of passage.

It is true that the area had little significance to the local indigenous people after about 1868 but once again we see the hand of the whites involved. Around that time at least 60 of the Yaburara people were murdered on the islands in a series of raids over some days, raids that became known as the Flying Foam Massacre (the Flying Foam again!). Incidentally, the CALM document quoted extensively in this blog says that 26 Yaburara were massacred.

The ABC’s Four Corners said on 20^th March 2000:

Title: SECRET WHITE MEN'S BUSINESS.
Stephen McDonnell (presenter)
This is a story with a deep history. It begins back in 1868 at this windswept place in the Pilbara. These standing stones were erected by Aborigines as a memorial to a massacre. Here two teams of white men slaughtered almost an entire tribe of Aborigines.

In a planned attack, at least 60 men, women and children from the Yaburara tribe were murdered in one day. The skulls of children with bullet holes in them were left behind. 
The massacre is part of a colonial history in the West that saw thousands of Aborigines killed in a controlled and organised fashion.

These killings at the Burrup Peninsula became known as the Flying Foam Massacre: An act which completely destroyed a language, a culture, a people EXCERPT FROM 4 CORNERS CONCLUDES

Just Google ”The Flying Foam Massacre” for a number of different points of view.

The incident is known to have caused enormous losses to the Yaburara people and in the following period, the area containing the petroglyphs lay practically abandoned until the 1960’s when development began, as described above. It’s a sad story.

That’s enough history and serious stuff for one blog !!!

We took a trip to Harding Dam, the local water supply. It also has piles of rock similar to that described above and they also look like something left over from mining. There is no mention of petroglyphs there, well not so far anyway!

The name of the game in this area is, of course mining and the transport of the iron ore to an endless number of bulk carriers that assemble off the coast on a daily basis. The Pilbara railway is an impressive and very busy line carrying iron ore from the mine to the ship loading facilities, in this case Port Lambert, near Point Sampson and Dampier. The track to Harding Dam runs beside large sections of the railway and the huge ore trains are a wonderful sight, I love trains nearly as much as birds. One train heading back to the mine was hauling more than 320 empty trucks, marvellous to watch.

Parts of the railway we saw are dual track, no doubt a siding allowing trains to pass one another on their trips to and from the loader. Another train hauling ore to the loader was pulling 163 loaded trucks, no doubt quite a few dollars’ worth of ore for the ships to take away to China or Japan. As I write this, three or maybe four huge ships are being loaded at the nearby Port Lambert while six others are anchored a little out to sea awaiting their turn. 

There’s no doubt that WA has the best displays of wildflowers. Even now, when the wildflower season is yet to start, there are masses of Sturt Desert Pea and large displays of Mulla Mulla in the areas surrounding Point Sampson. This year’s wildflower season is tipped to be one of the best for some time and we look forward to following some of the wildflower trails towards the south…. But not just yet, we’ll wait till it warms up a bit!

Next Stop Onslow and then we are going bush for a week.

 

    

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Roebourne and Point Sampson: Staircase to the moon, petroglyphs, very big trains, ships and wildflowers.

We might have to add to the name of this blog. Maybe it should be called TJ’s Sunday blog that seems to be the day that most of them get published.

As I touched on in my last blog, we have settled in this area for a couple of weeks, firstly in Roebourne and now in Point Sampson, enjoying the warm weather (28 to 30 degrees each day) and the cool nights. It’s absolutely not the Gold Coast or Noosa or Broome and that’s what we like – a relaxed lifestyle in an excellent caravan park, nice neighbours, good weather, and plenty of great natural attractions to explore.

The Cove Caravan Park at Point Sampson is one of the best we’ve stayed in; we first stayed here three years ago. It’s architect designed with spacious sites, excellent landscaping, nice green lawns, a great camp kitchen, a rec room, a barbecue get-together area and well above-average facilities. It’s thankfully not like a Big 4 park with stuff we don’t use like a swimming pool, spa, jumping pillow etc. it’s just a nice comfortable park.  We don’t make a practice of booking ahead but we do for this park. We like it here.

The staircase to the moon expedition was a laugh. I set up near the Cossack lookout, sitting in the prickly spinifex well away from a gaggle of young and old spectators who somehow thought they could take photos of the event on their fancy smart phones and on their digital cameras…..wrong.  The only effect they had on my efforts was that their flashes kept going off as I was trying to do my time exposures. At least I managed to get a couple of reasonable shots between their flashes!

WARNING, the next section is a bit of a lecture on petroglyphs, with some editorial comment!

Karratha is about 40Km down the road from Roebourne and Dampier is another 20 Km or so further.

Just down the road from Karratha heading towards Dampier there is a turnoff to the Burrup Peninsular and then another turnoff to the right to Hearson Cove. Just before Hearson Cove there is a nondescript dirt track leading off the gravel. About 150 metres along the dirt track there are some small, old and faded signs indicating that there are some aboriginal engravings in the area. This is a slight understatement; experts believe there could be up to 1,000,000 engravings in the general area. The signs have been placed by the “Department of Aboriginal Sites”, more of them later.

I have done a little reading on these engravings, called petroglyphs and it makes an interesting story. The following stuff is largely plagiarised from “Making Their Mark: Pilbara rock art” by Roz Hagan taken from “Landscope” a publication by CALM WA from 2006

The big piles of large irregularly shaped red rocks that hold the engravings are granophyre.  According to Geoscience Australia, granophyre is defined thus “Granophyre, commonly porphyritic; remelted granite. Formerly referred to as "Dampier Granophyre". Intrudes along the basal unconformity of the Fortescue Group; intrudes the Hearson Monzogranite outcrops along the Burrup Peninsula and Dampier Archipelago islands.

The areas of granophyre rock on which the local indigenous peoples, the Yaburara and possibly their close relations the Ngarluma engraved these petroglyphs look just like rubble piles left over from mining activity, but the stacks / piles are all naturally formed and similar piles exist right throughout the Pilbara.

The site was originally Dampier Island, part of the Dampier archipelago, named by the Yaburara peoples “Marujuga” meaning “hip bone sticking out”. It was not convenient to those developing the area for it to remain an island so, in the 1960’s, a causeway was built to give access to the area so an ore loading facility  and a new town (Dampier) could be built.  

The following are my thoughts only

I get the impression that the powers that be in this area are a little embarrassed at their past poor protection of the area and the removal of many of these petroglyphs; perhaps that’s why their presentation is still fairly low key these days. Here is my theory. The Department of Aboriginal Sites was probably put into place to ensure that Conservation and Land Management (CALM) or their predecessors were not able to protect the site from disturbance and development, so the ore loading facility and gas hub could be built, well, that’s my theory!

There are up to 1,000,000 (yes, that’s one million) petroglyphs and some are thought to be up to 18,000 years old. Many, of course, are very faded. Some engravings were noticed by those looking at the site as an ore loading facility in the 1960’s but luckily it was decided to build the facility at Dampier, a little further down the road.

 The petroglyphs were also noticed by those charged with building the nearby North West Shelf gas processing facility in the 1980s but this time they  actually moved some 1,800 of the engraved boulders and placed them in a compound near Hearson Cove, thus removing them from their historical context and restricting access to them. I guess that’s progress!!  Clearly the area was not adequately be protected by the Department of Aboriginal Sites. End of my theory.

That was a pretty big call, considering the rocks themselves were probably formed between 2,500 and 3,600 million years ago when the earth’s crust was still very young.  I understand that this area represents one of the world’s best preserved fragments of ancient continental crust – one of the earth’s earliest continents.

The petroglyphs served a variety of purposes for the Yaburara people. Some are believed part of “increase” sites for particular species or events. The indigenous people though that depicting animal and plant species in this way ensured their survival for the future and the continuity of the seasons. Other petroglyphs relate to ancestral creation beings, spirit figures, ceremonies and rites of passage. 

It is true that the area had little significance to the local indigenous people after about 1868 but once again we see the hand of the whites involved. Around that time at least 60 of the Yaburara people were murdered on the islands in a series of raids over some days, raids that became known as the Flying Foam Massacre (the Flying Foam again!). Incidentally, the CALM document quoted extensively in this blog says that 26 Yaburara were massacred. 

The ABC’s Four Corners said on 20^th March 2000:

Title: SECRET WHITE MEN'S BUSINESS.
Stephen McDonnell (presenter)
This is a story with a deep history. It begins back in 1868 at this windswept place in the Pilbara. These standing stones were erected by Aborigines as a memorial to a massacre. Here two teams of white men slaughtered almost an entire tribe of Aborigines.

In a planned attack, at least 60 men, women and children from the Yaburara tribe were murdered in one day. The skulls of children with bullet holes in them were left behind. 
The massacre is part of a colonial history in the West that saw thousands of Aborigines killed in a controlled and organised fashion.

These killings at the Burrup Peninsula became known as the Flying Foam Massacre: An act which completely destroyed a language, a culture, a people EXCERPT FROM 4 CORNERS CONCLUDES

Just Google ”The Flying Foam Massacre” for a number of different points of view.

The incident is known to have caused enormous losses to the Yaburara people and in the following period, the area containing the petroglyphs lay practically abandoned until the 1960’s when development began, as described above. It’s a sad story.

That’s enough history and serious stuff for one blog !!!

We took a trip to Harding Dam, the local water supply. It also has piles of rock similar to that described above and they also look like something left over from mining. There is no mention of petroglyphs there, well not so far anyway!

The name of the game in this area is, of course mining and the transport of the iron ore to an endless number of bulk carriers that assemble off the coast on a daily basis. The Pilbara railway is an impressive and very busy line carrying iron ore from the mine to the ship loading facilities, in this case Port Lambert, near Point Sampson and Dampier. The track to Harding Dam runs beside large sections of the railway and the huge ore trains are a wonderful sight, I love trains nearly as much as birds. One train heading back to the mine was hauling more than 320 empty trucks, marvellous to watch.

Parts of the railway we saw are dual track, no doubt a siding allowing trains to pass one another on their trips to and from the loader. Another train hauling ore to the loader was pulling 163 loaded trucks, no doubt quite a few dollars’ worth of ore for the ships to take away to China or Japan. As I write this, three or maybe four huge ships are being loaded at the nearby Port Lambert while six others are anchored a little out to sea awaiting their turn. 

There’s no doubt that WA has the best displays of wildflowers. Even now, when the wildflower season is yet to start, there are masses of Sturt Desert Pea and large displays of Mulla Mulla in the areas surrounding Point Sampson. This year’s wildflower season is tipped to be one of the best for some time and we look forward to following some of the wildflower trails towards the south…. But not just yet, we’ll wait till it warms up a bit!

Next Stop Onslow and then we are going bush for a week.

 

    

Roebourne and Cossack, time to slow down in the warm.

We are now in Roebourne and it’s time for us to slow down for a while to enjoy the warm weather and relaxed lifestyle of this part of the Pilbara.

Roebourne WA (population about 1,400 is about level with Mackay Qld on the Oz map.

The hotter weather in Darwin, Adelaide River, Katherine Kununurra, Broome etc. has been nice, but on reflection it has often been a little too hot. Roebourne’s daytime temps are around 30 or sometimes a little higher and the nights are cool and very pleasant and we plan is to stay in this general area for a few weeks.

Roebourne is south of Port Hedland and a little north of Dampier and Karratha. It is the second oldest town on the NW coast (the oldest is Cossack) and was once regarded as the capital of the north west. It has some interesting buildings, many constructed from local stone and quite a high indigenous population.

The Roebourne area was first settled in 1864 when Emma and John Withnell disembarked from a three masted schooner, travelled a way up the Harding River and selected some land. It is reported that the Withnells got on well with the local Ngarluma people.

The local Yindjibarndi people are currently locked in negotiations with Fortescue Metals’ Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest for access to their lands at Soloman Hub, about 200 Km south of Roebourne. He is offering them $500,000 to sign, $4 million a year and up to $6.5 million per year in staff housing, indigenous jobs, training and business opportunities. Negotiations have been going on for three or four years. Seeing Fortescue will be removing 2.4 billion tonnes over the next 40 years, worth $280 billion at today’s prices it’s not really a surprise that the Yindjibarndi haven’t yet signed.

Today Roebourne is still considered the gateway to the Pilbara region with its multi-million dollar iron ore deposits and a huge pastoral industry, but as far as size and infrastructure is concerned, it has been well and truly surpassed by the modern towns of Karratha and Dampier.

The prosperity in those towns is well and truly indicated by the cost of real estate and the “toys” evident in many of the new houses – fancy 4wds, a nice car for the other half, a huge boat and, more often than not a big off road caravan or a fancy camper trailer. Life seems good in these towns and the wages for many seem very good, but I don’t think I could survive the summer temps in the high 40’s.

There is plenty of evidence of the fly in / fly out work culture here, with plenty of “villages” of basic accommodation (modern “dongas” for those in the know) some independently owned and run and some clearly operated by the mining companies. I was told that FIFO stands “for fly in fly out” but it can also stand for “fit in or f off” ....amusing!  

The nearby town of Cossack was one of the first settled after the Withnells arrived at the mouth of the Harding River in 1863. Cossack is now virtually a ghost town.

Cossack was originally called Tien Tsin Harbour and by 1866 it had developed into a thriving pearling and maritime community centralised around the port. By 1869 the port was the premier shipping depot for the emerging pastoral industry.

Cyclones were just as big a problem in early days and there is a poignant reminder of that in the old Cossack cemetery. In 1894 the schooner Ann was sheltering from bad weather in a local area known as The Foam Passage. A small lugger skippered by Joe Green had been tied off to the back of the Ann. Evidently, insufficient chain had been passed out and both vessels and all aboard including the “coloured crew” except one man were lost.

The skipper ZB Erikson, his wife Minnie and child Pearl are all buried together, having been recovered by Cossack locals. The whereabouts of Joe Green are or the “coloured crew” are unknown.

There are also a number of Japanese graves in the small Cossack cemetery as well as a commemorative monument in the centre of the Japanese section, built to commemorate those that have no marked graves.  It was then often the practice for those that died in pearl diving accidents or died at sea from other causes to be buried at sea or taken ashore and buried on the nearest stretch of beach, either on the mainland or on a nearby island.

The government of the day strongly supported the prosperity of Cossack with the construction of some very impressive buildings, many of which survive today.  Those surviving include the bond store (it was before federation and state taxes applied), a courthouse and the police barracks.

Cossack was home to the north west’s first pearling industry, but over-fishing soon forced the fleet to head further north and Broome was established. The silting of the harbour was the final blow to the area. These days the major mining focus of the area is at Point Sampson and at Dampier both established in the 1960’s.

Our arrival in Roebourne coincided with a local phenomenon called “staircase to the moon”. It happens over a two or three day  period a few times a year when a full moon rises from the ocean after dark and, during a very low tide, causes reflections on the mud flats that resemble a stair case leading to the moon. Photography of this event is a little tricky, but I was able to shoot a couple of reasonable shots after sitting in the spinifex on a nearby hill in the dark, hoping that there were not too many spiders and other assorted things crawling about.

We took a trip to along the Roebourne – Wittenoom road / track and took some interesting pics of an area that looks more like parts of Arizona that Australia. Very impressive scenery.

We also visited parts of the Millstream Chichester National Park some more very spectacular country.

You know by now my quest to photograph as many Aussie birds as I can. Some of the hardest to photograph are the little birds, they are mostly very shy and flit around very quickly. I was really pleased to finally get some reasonable shots of zebra finches and a pair of nesting budgies, a couple more to cross off the list!

There will be more posts from Roebourne and surrounding areas as we explore further..

Barn Hill Station Stay, Port Hedland (briefly) then Peawah River

Having escaped from Broome relatively unscathed, we travelled a short distance through to Barn Hill Station Stay prepared to spend a week, but I booked for three days for a start. Past experiences suggest it is not a really good idea to commit for a week in an unfamiliar place and Barn Hill Station Stay proved the worth of that philosophy.

Barn Hill Station Stay is a great place but not fun for little doggies. The burrs and prickles are terrible and it only took about 10 minutes for Maestro to have lots of very sharp burrs in his coat and, worst of all, in his feet and they are very difficult to remove. Poor Maestro spent hours trying to pull them out of his feet with his teeth and in the end we had to cut a lot of them out of his coat.

Barn Hill Station Stay is on Thangoo Station, a 43,000 acre working cattle station that stretches about 85 Km along the coast between Broome and Port Hedland. It’s a pleasant place to stay with non-powered campsites (with water) along the low cliffs adjacent to the beach and sites with a limited amount of power in a more conventional area near the beach. It’s a 9 Km drive along a sandy but not too dusty track that is a little rough in places. The amenities are reasonable with flush toilets and clean showers, although the amenities I used has no roof (it is designed that way) and the walls don’t go all the way to the floor.

From our spot along the low cliff line there is a slightly precarious track leading down to a broad expanse of beach with some interesting rock formations. It is possible to walk for quite a long way along the beach.

Generators are allowed in the non-powered areas but we only needed our trusty Honda generator for a short period one day to catch up on a couple of loads of washing – our solar panels and house battery provide plenty of power for lighting and overnight TV / video if needed..

There was the usual gathering of the Sundowners cult on the cliff tops with their drinks and nibbles  and this time I joined some of them hoping to shoot a couple of pics with the sunset and a pod of dolphins that had been chasing bait fish just off the beach. The dolphins did perform but I was not able to get dolphin and sunset in the same photo (although my shot of the sunset has got a dolphin fin just visible if you look really closely).

One dolphin posed nicely, leaping out of the water a couple of times.

Some of the rock formations are describes as “mini pinnacles” but that’s a bit of a stretch. There is also a sphinx-like formation that on close inspection looks like some sort of mad cat. Does it look familiar Mustang??

The name Barn Hill comes from a barn-like hill (funny about that) adjacent to the entry road to the station. There is a cairn on the barn-like hill that is a historical landmark left by Alexander Forrest during his exploration of the Kimberley in 1879.

We decided to give Maestro a break from the tortuous prickles and left Barn Hill after two days and headed down towards Port Hedland, about 300 odd Km away.

We called in to Sandfire Roadhouse for fuel and a check of their caravan park area and decided to continue on another 100 Km or so to Pardoo Roadhouse where we had stayed once before. The caravan area was fine with good grass for a change but the food was really rank, the worst chicken schnitzel ever and I do mean ever!!. I suggest that anyone overnighting there should definitely cook their own!  

Back on the road and Camps Australia Wide 6 suggested that the rest stop at De Grey River is a good place to stop but it was a little muddy from recent rain so we continued through to Port Hedland

We didn’t stay in Port Hedland last time, thinking that it had little to offer, and we couldn’t stay there this time because both caravan parks were full. I suspect that a lot of the local workers occupy a lot of the space in the two caravan parks, and there’s nothing wrong with that. From what I was told, to rent a 3 bedroom house in the area costs upwards of $1,500 per week!

We were offered a spot in “the overflow” that is evidently the parking area of the local golf club, for $25 a night no power, no water but we declined politely and drove on. Port Hedland is a thriving city, it’s just not that interested in tourists, particularly those with caravans.

Camps Australia Wide 6 once again proved its worth by suggesting that the Peawah River West area would be a good place to overnight and it proved a good choice. We found a spot adjacent to the rest area where we could camp and have a fire and generally relax, very nice. It’s great to spend some time chatting with others on the road, sharing tips on good places to stay and sharing warnings of places to avoid because of high fuel prices or just plain bad service   

NEXT STOP; Roebourne and Point Sampson.

  

Out of Derby and off to Broome

Before leaving Derby we visited the Mowanjum Gallery, a little way down the Gibb River Road, home of some of the wandjina art, in fact the main building of the gallery is in the shape of a wandjina.

  

I understand that the Derby and surrounding area aboriginal groups are the Worrara, Wunambul and Ngarinyin people and I think that it is the Worrara that have the gallery.

Kimberley area aboriginal people credit the wandjina with the creation of the dreaming and believe they made the world and all that it contains. Wandjina are generally shown full length, standing upright or lying horizontally. They have large mouthless faces, usually with large black eyes with their head surrounded by a band with radiating lines. I was told that if they also had mouths they would be far too powerful.  The lines represent the feathers that they wore and / or the lightning they control.

I would have liked to add to my small aboriginal art collection with a wandjina painting but they were all out of my price range at $150 to$300 and upwards for quite small prints and $500 to thousands for originals.

The Worrora aboriginal people also sell decorated boab nuts and I was fortunate to meet Madeline / Maddie. Maddie welcomed me to her country and offered me a nicely decorated nut that she had done and I bought it.  The nut, coincidentally, has a small wandjina head.

During our last evening in Derby we once again visited the jetty at sunset. This time I came across a group of white breasted woodswallows  clustering on the local power lines as woodswallows love to do. One posed very nicely on the power lines for me.

Some people I spoke to have been slightly amazed that we stayed in Derby for more than a week, but we really enjoyed it, very relaxing with plenty to see.

On the way to Broome we stopped at Willare Bridge Roadhouse  for a cuppa and, lo and behold right next to where we parked was a lone red tailed black cockatoo feeding. I had been trying for weeks to find one, ever since we crossed into WA.  On our last trip 3 years ago they were very plentiful, but not this time, so it was nice to finally get a reasonable pic.

The rest of the trip through to Broome was uneventful, well, we didn’t stay right in Broome itself, (Broome being the most dog / pet unfriendly place in the known and unknown universe),  we stayed at Roebuck Plains Roadhouse about 30 Km outside of Broome. We have visited Broome before and have seen most of the sights. In my humble opinion, Broome is one of those places like Ayers Rock that you should visit once, cross off the list and then forget.

We did  a lot of food shopping , wandered through the streets at Chinatown, looked at some very expensive pearls and made the obligatory trip to Cable Beach at sunset where, surrounded by large numbers of sundowners and some quite smelly camels we watched the sun fall into the ocean. Maestro was a bit mystified by the camels.

In the end we only stayed two nights in Roebuck Plains / Broome. All Broome caravan parks were full and many caravanners were directed to ‘overflow areas”, like the Broome Pistol Club or the PCYC. We had a look at the pistol club down near the port and it was a very dry and dusty area with vans all over the place. I don’t think that Broome really likes caravan people and maybe prefer their tourists to fly in!!

WARNING, RANT AHEAD….

When we arrive in a city or town, it is normal to call into the tourist information centre. These centres used to be operated by friendly people, often by part timers or enthusiastic volunteers. These days, the centres seem to be operated by local council staff whose aim in life seems to be to sell as many tickets as they can on local flights or tickets on local cruises or attractions. I guess councils are addicted to the commissions that these attractions pay.

If you ask about local maps or information on local free attractions you may be given a crummy black and white photocopied map if you’re lucky.  Not really good enough people !!

NEXT STOP BARN HILL STATION

Next stop Barn Hill Station and on to Port Hedland