Wyndham to Port Hedland 3.8.15

We have moved from Wyndham to Port Hedland via Halls Creek, Mary Pool, Fitzroy Crossing, Broome, Barn Hill, 80 Mile Beach, then Port Hedland.  The weather has remained fine and hot and the travelling has been uneventful.  At Fitzroy Crossing we did a tour by boat up Geikie Gorge which was formed during the Devonian period and was originally a coral reef about 350 million years ago. Broome we really enjoyed as we, by sheer chance, coincided with the phenomenon The Staircase to the Moon. So along with hundreds of other people we lined up in the gardens of the Mangrove Resort to watch the moon rise over the mud flats and the moonlight form steps across to us.  Really quite a sight.  Also had the Toyota in for its 80,000 km service.  Met up again with Ken and Mandy.  Visited the Bird Park and the Mango Farm and the Broome Bird Observatory.  Watched volunteers banding waders and was able to have a close look at Great Knots, Curlew sandpipers, and Ruddy Turnstones.  Did lots of swimming in the pool at the caravan park.  Barn Hill was another piece of good timing as on Sundays it is roast night.  How they managed to feed a couple of hundred people 3 courses quickly with no fuss I do not know.  Practice, I guess.  The beach and cliff scenery here is quite remarkable, deep red cliffs worn into fantastic shapes, a wide beach and the deepest aquamarine sea.  80 Mile Beach is just that.  A wide beach smothered in shells and backed by sand hills that stretches away forever.  Arriving in Port Hedland today we saw an ore train which must have been more than a kilometre long  This definitely is  a working town. and ore carriers are lined up out sea waiting to come in to be filled up from the ore stockpiles.  There are also mountains of blinding white salt waiting to be processed by industry.

Geikie Gorge

Geikie Gorge

Geikie Gorge

Cable Beach Broome

A Kimberley red sand track

Roebuck Bay, Broome, near the Bird Observatory

Barn Hill cliffs

Barn Hill

Barn Hill

Barn Hill

Sunset 80 Mile Beach

Ore Carrier, Port Hedland

A working wharf, Port Hedland

80 Mile Beach

Barn Hill Cliff