Sight Seeing Around Karratha.
Dampier's Waterfront
This morning we got up, had breakfast and made ourselves some lunch. I have to confess we found 9.5c a bit cold for us and pput the heater on for only the second time in almost 5 months. I think we are starting to get used to this wonderful weather.
First headed west of Karratha out to Dampier for a drive around the town and waterfront. On one hand it is really industrialized, on the other it’s so pretty. Maybe being from the smelly Valley (Latrobe that is) I can see the beauty in heavy industry! On the way out there we passed the huge Pilbara ore trains carrying ore to the wharfs and the evaporation ponds for the salt mines.
The Pilbara is quite hilly, and all those hills look like someone dumped a huge truck load of red rocks on them. That and the blue sky and sea, the wild flowers and trees make it so beautiful.
Hearson's Cove
We took a drive to Hearson’s Cove-a popular swimming, bbqing and picnic and boat launching spot. Those big red rock hills run right down to the waters edge there. After that we went to Deep Gorge to see the Aboriginal engravings. It’s a bit of a goat track in over rocks and the small creek, but well worth it. Some of the engravings are incredible. We saw kangaroos (lots of kangaroos) people, fish turtles, a bull (or maybe it was a water buffalo), lizards……. I expected there would be caves, but the engravings are actually just on the tumbled rocks on the hill sides. Once you’ve seen them, you realize when you are out driving, they are actually everywhere. 40,000 of them have been recorded making it the most prolific site in Australia apparently.
Rock Engravings-can you spot the kangaroo just off centre
We ate our picnic at Withnell bay, another pretty spot with a boat ramp, but within spitting distance of the Woodside Onshore Treatment Facility (a big gas plant). Lunch finished, we came back to the local tourist information centre and booked a sailing cruise on Sunday and a Pilbara Iron Port Facility tour on Monday. The sailing cruise through the Dampier Archipelago with its 42 islands leaves at 9am in the morning and returns at 3.30pm. There are a maximum of 10 passengers and we provide our own lunch and drinks. We’ll be stopping on the way to swim and snorkel. Sounds good to me.
Our day finished with a spot of retail therapy-we bought some clothes for our coming holiday and a few ingredients for dinner. At the supermarket we bot noticed almost all the cars are 4WD. I reckon 10% of the cars in the carpark were normal sedans. Another fact we discovered was that between the 20,00 people in the shire they have 3,500 boats registered. That's the highest number of boats per capita in Australia.
This morning we got up, had breakfast and made ourselves some lunch. I have to confess we found 9.5c a bit cold for us and pput the heater on for only the second time in almost 5 months. I think we are starting to get used to this wonderful weather.
First headed west of Karratha out to Dampier for a drive around the town and waterfront. On one hand it is really industrialized, on the other it’s so pretty. Maybe being from the smelly Valley (Latrobe that is) I can see the beauty in heavy industry! On the way out there we passed the huge Pilbara ore trains carrying ore to the wharfs and the evaporation ponds for the salt mines.
The Pilbara is quite hilly, and all those hills look like someone dumped a huge truck load of red rocks on them. That and the blue sky and sea, the wild flowers and trees make it so beautiful.
Hearson's Cove
We took a drive to Hearson’s Cove-a popular swimming, bbqing and picnic and boat launching spot. Those big red rock hills run right down to the waters edge there. After that we went to Deep Gorge to see the Aboriginal engravings. It’s a bit of a goat track in over rocks and the small creek, but well worth it. Some of the engravings are incredible. We saw kangaroos (lots of kangaroos) people, fish turtles, a bull (or maybe it was a water buffalo), lizards……. I expected there would be caves, but the engravings are actually just on the tumbled rocks on the hill sides. Once you’ve seen them, you realize when you are out driving, they are actually everywhere. 40,000 of them have been recorded making it the most prolific site in Australia apparently.
Rock Engravings-can you spot the kangaroo just off centre
We ate our picnic at Withnell bay, another pretty spot with a boat ramp, but within spitting distance of the Woodside Onshore Treatment Facility (a big gas plant). Lunch finished, we came back to the local tourist information centre and booked a sailing cruise on Sunday and a Pilbara Iron Port Facility tour on Monday. The sailing cruise through the Dampier Archipelago with its 42 islands leaves at 9am in the morning and returns at 3.30pm. There are a maximum of 10 passengers and we provide our own lunch and drinks. We’ll be stopping on the way to swim and snorkel. Sounds good to me.
Our day finished with a spot of retail therapy-we bought some clothes for our coming holiday and a few ingredients for dinner. At the supermarket we bot noticed almost all the cars are 4WD. I reckon 10% of the cars in the carpark were normal sedans. Another fact we discovered was that between the 20,00 people in the shire they have 3,500 boats registered. That's the highest number of boats per capita in Australia.
posted by janandruss at
8:57 p.m.
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