Sun, 19th June - De Grey's River

We said our goodbyes to our neighbours at Cleaverville and headed back out along the dirt road to the highway.  Rick's eyes were a little better due to our neighbour Fran giving him a couple of Zirtek tablets to take.  We were hoping there would be a chemist open in Port Hedland even though it was a Sunday, where we could purchase some antihistamines for him.

At around midday we stopped at the Whim Creek Hotel.  We had heard that the food there was great.  Our meal was OK, but there was enough food on our plates to feed four hungry miners!  We took a 'doggy bag' of chips for our dinner that night.  While we were sitting outside eating our lunch, about 15 miners came in for theirs (including one young girl about 18 years old).  The mine is right next door to the pub and that's all there is ... a mine and a pub with some accommodation and a swimming pool for the miners. 

When we first arrived at the pub, I needed to visit the ladies room which meant walking down the side to a demountable toilet block.  As I started walking, I heard 'Hello' in a strange voice.  I spun around to come face to face with a big white cocky and his mate in a huge cage.  It turned out his name is Harry and without fail he says hello to everyone who walks past him.

Driving through this part of WA you find that every second vehicle on the road has fleuro stripes down the side, a huge aerial topped with an orange flag and is driven by a miner with a fleuro vest on.  Every other vehicle is either a car towing a caravan or a road train.  The road trains up here haul four trailers usually and are immense.  It is a bit of novelty to see a sedan.  The countryside is really interesting and the scenery changes all the time.  Sometimes there is nothing on the horizon and then suddenly you will come across a range or some fascinating rock formations.

We drove into Port Hedland and the closer we got to the harbour area the dirtier the place looked.  We couldn't get over how much red dust covered people's roofs, cars, gardens and footpaths.  We decided that we wouldn't try to stay anywhere near here.  We drove further out of town where it was a bit cleaner, to a shopping centre and found that the chemist used to open on Sundays but recently decided to close.  Just not our luck ... we ended up getting some natural type hayfever tablets at Woolworths in the hope that Rick might get some relief.  We also stocked up on groceries and drinking water and kept heading north to a free camp at De Grey's River for the night.  We were quite late getting here and found that there were probably around 40 odd assorted caravans, campers, motorhomes, etc. already set up for the night.  The truckies think its great fun to blow their horns as they drive past these overnight stops, no matter what the time of day or night.  The traffic didn't bother us much during the night here ... we figured the road trains avoid travelling during the night as there are no fences and lots of cattle wander the sides of the roads.  You  occasionally see a dead one of the side of the road.

Some of the interesting scenery

Our campsite for the night at De Grey's River