Port Hedland:

Port Hedland is the largest and busiest iron ore ports in the world. From here all the iron ore is shipped to many countries especially China.

We arrived early and spent the rest of the day getting 4 new tyres and trying to sort out the car problems. There are two areas – Port Hedland and South Hedland and they are eleven kilometres apart so we did many klms between them going from one place to another without an eventual solution so we have decided to move on.

Port Hedland is a very interesting place and the size of the operation is huge, mainly owned by BHP Billition.
The huge ships come into the port and are loaded up with iron ore and fourteen ships at a time can be loaded. You could stand for hours just watching the ships come in or go out. There is activity everywhere.
Huge trains bring the ore directly from the mine to the docks where it is crushed again and then loaded onto the ship by al large conveyor belt. A ship can be loaded in 35 hours. I counted 17 ships waiting off shore to get into the docks to be loaded.
The trains are extremely long – up to 336 cars with several engines and average 3klms long.These operate 24 hours. Our caravan park is near the railway line and one of the sounds of Port Hedland is the drone of these trains. The longest train on record here had 776 cars, eight engines and carried 100,000 tonnes of ore.

Everything here is covered in red dust so a white brick building appears red. They do a lot for dust control but it is unpreventable. Nearly everyone here works in the mines and as they get such a huge wage the rents are astronomical. A 4 bedroom house is $1700 per week and a small 2 bedroom unit is $850 a week. Of course the real estate is astronomical as well. A lot of workres live in the caravan park and it is one of the dearest we have been in and in the worst condition. The showers have broken walls and the toilets are not much better. There is no maintenance.

Everyone here drives round in company cars which are utes with a big yellow number on the side and a little flag flying. The whole town revolves around the mines.

A lot of effort has been made to beautify the town so there have been some recent tree planting and street landscapes. BHP gives 1% of their pre tax profit to the community.

Another industry here is a salt production and there a large salt flats.

The salt is piled into a huge mound and you see them loading the salt into road train with a front end loader. Rather puts you off eating salt.

It is amazing to thing that this town has been responsible for so much weath in the world and that many countries rely on ther operations here to provide all their steel.

We found it to be interesting but we were glad to leave.