Port Hedland and Pardoo
Without being into fishing, the allure of the desolate East Pilbara coastline was harder for us to appreciate. It is certainly impressive for its sheer vastness. Huge tracts of treeless samphire or spinifex coastal plains are ringed by a shoreline that has tidal flats that stretch to the horizon. What the land lacks in diversity the sea makes up for one hundred fold, or so we're told. The pitty of it though is that the water is largely off limits for swimming. The huge silty tides make it difficult to get in the water and the threat of crocs, jelly fish and sharks make it too dicey.
In Port Hedland we pitched up at the Golf Course campground about 20km out of town. But if the idea of a golf course conjures images of cool, green and manicured surrounds, this was anything but. It was a place to rest with the bonus of flushing toilets and clean showers. We went to the BHP Park for lunch which has awesome views across to the port with tankers loading and moving in and out of the port channel escorted by tugs. In the afternoon we explored Pretty Pool, a tidal beach and estuary and in the evening we cooked hamburgers at the green and pleasant Cemetery Beach Park. I thought Port Hedland was fascinating for the scale and magnitude of its raw industry, predominantly massive shipping of iron ore and big salt mines. There was also a municipal effort at making it a pleasant place to live with beachside green space and amenities.
After Port Hedland we stopped for two nights at Pardoo Station Caravan Park. This was a busy spot with great amenities and shady sites. We enjoyed the pool and the opportunity to do some laundry. We found a fabulous hilltop picnic setting to admire the sunset on our first night and on our second night we watched the sun decend over the mudflats of the Pardoo River as fishing hopefuls cast lines into the rising tide. We discovered life in the form of hermit crabs and sea snails in the kilometre long tidal flats of Red Point and we eventually reached the water’s edge to dip our toes in.
