Indee Station, and along the way

Wildflower season beginning!

From Eighty Mile Beach we decided that we would have a quick look at Port Headland, as we hadn't heard too many good reports about it, and then head on towards the Karijini National Park - that we had heard heaps of good things about. It was too long a drive to get there in teh one day, so we made plans to stop at a 'Station Stay". Well...Indee Station was one of those memorable, interesting experiences!

 Some interesting loads along the way:



Rather large trucks, on large trucks!

 


Good old 'Nitropril'!! Heading out to a mine somewhere for a
spot of blasting! Homemade bomb, anyone??

 
 
 

Port Hedland was definitely a mining town - all roads lead to the port, all buildings had a lovely 'red tinge' (even those that didn't have a red colourbond roof), and although a lot of the visible housing was fairly "tacky" it was worth a lot. And each of the major towns in teh Pilbara region seem to be "owned"/sponsored by one of the major mining companies. Port Hedland appears to be a BHP town.

On visiting the port, we could see about 6 ships, in various stages of being loaded with iron ore and there were another dozen on the horizon, waiting for their chance to come in to port. The window of the Tourist Info Centre displayed the current port happenings - listing ships names, country of destination and tonnage of load. With all loads going to China, Tiawan and Japan, the load sizes were amazing. The largest cargo amount was 204,000 tonnes of iron ore, and with none less than 150,000 tonnes. That is a lot of 'stuff' that they take out of the ground up here!

 Port of Port Hedland

 The owners of Indee Station were a trifle 'lack lustre', to say the least when we got there. They had hosted a big BHP miner's "do" the night before and were all 'suffering' a bit still when we arrived. Colin was a nice old bloke - had been on teh station for nearly 50 years, and had a few stories to tell. Betty was a different kettle of fish, who couldn't manage to get out of her chair, or look up from her magazine to look at us, as we attempted to book in for the night! Jon said ah yes, all station people seem to have a bit of individuality about them! (that was a polite way of saying what i thought - that she was just plain rude!). Anyway, we set up and then went back to the homestead for "happy hour". As stated to us, "now it's from 5.30 - 6.30pm, so we'll see you then!" Yes Mam! It was a good chance to catch up with some other fellow campers and here about their experiences at Karijini National Park - our next stop.

Before we left Indee Station we took a drive south through some of their land to a place called "Red Rock". This was a large red rock, that looked remarkably like a small version of Uluru. Also the site of some aboriginal engravings. There was also a series of waterholes, where the river flowed through the station, particularly in the Wet season. This was an amazing feature, in an otherwise, fairly barren landscape. Although, all around were rocky hills, obviously fairly rich in all sorts of minerals. There were a few stories about gold nuggets being found, just in time to pay for a new purchase ... etc and the station was surrounding by mines of one sort or another. 

Indee Station landscape

Red Rock - not Uluru!!

Station scenery. And this was only a small

portion of the 'collection'. There was old,
broken down machinery, rusted metal, and
...'crap for miles'!
As I said, it was an interesting and memorable stay!