You know you wake up some mornings and wonder where you are? Allthego does, but he knows where he is today! Port Hedland.

Here is a map of where we have come from and where we are going over the next few days. We have come down from Broome (top right) along the Great Northern Hwy and stopped at 80 Mile Beach (in the middle). Now at Port Hedland and will be going out to Marble Bar on a day trip.

‘Hedland’ is spelt without an ‘a’ before the ‘d’. Why is this? It’s because the place is named after Capt Peter Hedland who explored the area in 1863. BHP have big influence. It is their iron ore export port, Rio Tinto also use it for salt exports.

Our camp spot here is in a rather squeezy van park. Bit of a concrete jungle, the paved sites are wide but quite short with a narrow road between the rows of vans. Not much grass. We are fortunate to have a view out to the port from an elevated site on the CP boundary.

The area is comprised of two ‘towns’, the old ‘Port Hedland’ and the new ‘South Hedland’ which is about 5km to the east of old Port.

The old Port Hedland is based around the BHP iron ore export terminal complex. Trains bring the iron ore from the interior into the port for loading onto ships bound for all parts.

It is almost a constant stream of trains up to 2.5km long, with empty ones going back the other way. We were lucky to catch a loaded train coming past the elevated lookout point and get a video for my train followers to see.

Watched some ship movements at the port for a while as well. Commercial activity in this area seems to have had better days. We had lunch at the 100+ year old Esplanade Hotel. It is closing soon for a two year refurbishment by BHP to make it safe. The sandstone wall claddings are falling off and the accomodation areas are suffering severely from old age deterioration.

Rio Tinto also operate a salt production complex just out of the old Port. It spans over 35 hectares of evaporation ponds with salt water being pumped from a river fed from the Indian Ocean. We did a site tour of the complex and learnt a lot about salt. There is a lot to know about salt. Interesting story, but rather complex to try to share on a blog like this one. And Allthego is unable to vividly recall all the nuances. It is just a big operation.

After harvesting the salt from the ponds it is stock piled and later loaded onto trucks for transfer to the port and overseas customers. It is high grade salt and very sought after by overseas manufacturers for use in a wide range of products (not just food) and production processes. An interesting tour.

Over at South Hedland the town seems to be service centre for the iron ore extraction industry. All sorts of industry suppliers are based here, as well as a TAFE, corporate offices and accomodation complexes.

We came over here to get some warm woolies and a photo of the Big Wheelbarrow. The area seems to have more life to it compared to the old Port area.

We have a big day coming up out at Marble Bar.