The first task this morning was a quick look around Port Hedland and some photos to try and capture this town. The BHP sign on the tank in the first picture below seems to me to sum up this town. It is without a doubt an industrial site that happens also to be a town. There are large bulk carrier ships in the harbor, hugh fuel storage tanks close to the main street, and the large salt production facility on the main entrance to the town. In the large flat area south and west of the harbor are all kinds of facilities like the airport, power station, and depots for all those road trains I discussed in yesterdays post.

The 40km ride to the Marble Bar turnoff was through very flat grass land with some low scrub. That type of scenery persisted for a long time while travelling south on the Marble Bar road but after a while hills and small mountains started to appear. These I assumed were the continuation of the range of hills that I passed through yesterday and are part of the geology that makes up Karajini Nation Park.

About 50km down the Marble Bar road I came to the Shaw River, a very wide almost dry river bed. ON the southern side there was a primitive exit from the highway into a small area that clearly had been used as a camping area. To my surprise there were stills pools of water in the river bed and a large flock of Pelicans were resting on the banks of that water.

The next item that caught my interest was the Des Streckfuss memorial rest area. As you can see from the photo below this was built in 1995. I could not find any information on Des Streckfuss online.

A little while after the Des Streckfuss rest area I saw a group of people on hroses mustering cattle. We exchanged waves as I raced past them. But I was so surprised to see people on horses in the middle of this no-where country that I went back to get some photos.

In this part of Australia one quickly get used to the fact that almost all rocks, hills and soil have a red color. But a little while after my interaction with the cattle mustering I saw a group of hills tha had notably darker red tops than the rest of the country side.

After arriving in Marble Bar and finding some accomodation for the night (a cabin) at the local Caravan Park I went of a short sight seeing trip around the town. The photos in the group below are from the lookout near the towns water supply tank.

Sunset as seen from the Caravan Park.