Oresome

We moved west along the coast from Broome, but the coastal road is 20-30 km inland and all beaches and sea views involved unsealed roads that would destroy Geoffrey so we missed out on the little bays and inlets.

Port Hedland is on the coast and is a large mining town and port, the main industries being iron ore and salt mines. It is quite a grim industrial place, certainly not picturesque, although full marks to the Tourist Board and their catchy slogan.....'Come to Port Hedland- it's Oresome!'

The campsite we ended up at was one of the most expensive we have stayed in to date. It appears that the building of houses has not accelerated to meet the demands since mining took off (all very complex politically, as it requires the release of Aboriginal owned land) so the parks were full of transient workers benefiting from the high tax-free weekly housing allowances and living in tents or old caravans. As they can be paid around $400 per week housing allowance the caravan parks appear to have seized the opportunity and raised fees accordingly.

Plenty of work for us had we decided to stay, but after a night on the beers with a few youngsters doing so I suspect that we would not have survived the experience.

From trek phase 3

We are hopefully staying at a site with good internet access from tomorrow, so I will endeavour to fill in the gaps then.