Sep 16

Red Dog lived here

by in Places we've been, Things we've seen

If you’ve seen the movie you’ll know we’re in Dampier. For those of you who haven’t seen the movie we are in Dampier. Near Karratha, Cossack and Roeburne we are back on the WA coast.

Getting back here has been a 800km round trip via Newman, Karijini, Tom Price and Nanutarra, just dots on the map now.

Dampier et el is a mining town. Karratha has become the epicentre of  activity with a large population and business centre but Dampier to the north and Point Sampson to the northeast are the ports for iron ore and gas. Not as big or as busy as Port Hedland but interesting nonetheless.

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Anyway there’s Red Dog (again)

Cossack is an old pearling town just north of Roebourne. Relocated to its present location after a cyclone back in the late 1800’s it was a fairly substantial town in its time. Parts of it are beautifully preserved …..

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schoolhouse, warehouse, courthouse, jailhouse, sh..house, (bigger) warehouse, and someones own house, all in great shape except the obvious one that isn’t.

Flash on to Point Samson….

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where it’s all gas processing . The iron ore trucks pictured are actually at Dampier. Don’t know what is involved in the gas processing but the noise and the pipes are incredible. Gas from here is piped all over the state.

Roebourne is another historic town but not nearly as well preserved as Cossack…

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Whilst these examples are reasonable, although not in great shape, the town itself is very run down. Nevertheless what looks like a new government building is under construction…100_1342

No idea what it is.

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Looking more like a city at night, the gas plant out from Dampier is astounding. I can’t remember the name of the peninsula that this facility sits on but its sort of to the right of Dampier on the coast (just discovered its Point Burrup). From this same area we witnessed the “stairway to the moon” again….

DSC07876 but I remembered the tripod this time so the photos were a little better than Broome…

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Then it was on the way south again to pick up on Onslow, Exmouth, Coral Bay, Carnarvon, Denham, Monkey Mia and of course Steep Point, the most westerly part of the continent, but more on that to come.

Internet reception all down the coast is patchy. This entry has taken 3 nights and a lot of hair to put together. The photos seem to take hours to load even though they are all substantially reduced in megs. Should be in Geraldton  soon where hopefully reception on all fronts should be better.

 

 

 

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