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To Karratha, Dampier, Roebourne, Cossack and Port Samson: September 11th to 15th 2013
Today was a 524km ride from Sandfire Roadhouse to Karratha. We by-passed Port Hedland, eating a quick lunch at a roadhouse, then found the countryside after this rather boring! Windy, dry, and we both had aching hips on our motorbikes. Whim Creek pub on the way is closed now, so we both had a drink of our own bottled water and a couple of panadols each to ease our poor aching old bodies! It was a relief to finally set up our tent at the Pilbara Caravan Park, a Big4 place.
And here we heard the great news that Helen's pregnancy is all ok, with tests showing good results. Adrian and Helen can now relax and look forward to a new sibling for Sophie next February.
The next day I felt like I'd been knee capped on both knees…bone grating on bone. The windy riding weather yesterday? Never mind, we were camped among an assortment of cheerful older men, each one in his own little tent and travelling solo from various parts of Australia. It's funny how each area we have been to has a particular kind of camper, be it gold seekers with their metal detectors, fishermen with their big 4WDs and boats, backpackers from Europe exploring the world, or whatever.
Friday 13th: To Dampier and the Burrup Peninsula
A short ride for both of us today, out to the little town of Dampier, and the enormous North West Shelf Gas Project out on the Burrup Peninsula. This supplies more than 40% of Australia's oil and gas production, and some huge orange flares are flaming on the skyline.
We had a deli lunch in the Dampier shopping centre, which is a 1960s style complex and almost completely empty of people. Only workers in high vis gear were buying their lunches from the deli here. Most people live in Karratha, which is where all the shopping and other facilities are.
At Dampier we read signs about William Dampier who was the first Englishman to visit the Australian coastline in 1688, 80 years before James Cook went to the east coast. In his diaries he wrote of the Dampier area: "Rock piles: stones ….all of a rusty colour, and ponderous." Yes, the Dampier Archipelago has lots of outcrops of big red stones looking like a bulldozer has pushed them around, but these outcrops are all natural.
We also saw the Red Dog statue at Dampier's entrance. A sign says: "The Pilbara Wanderer. Died November 21st 1979. Erected by the Many Friends Made During His Travels." Red Dog was a large red kelpie cross dog who had no owner but somehow inveigled his canine way into the hearts of many humans across the Pilbara towns. He jumped onto Hamersley Iron buses and cars, and he was a very intelligent character who made a friendly difference to a wide community. He took poison bait and was mourned sadly across the whole area he roamed. I enjoyed watching a movie about this interesting dog last year.
Later: Tonight we were taken out to dinner by my niece Pauline and her partner Rowan, at the Pearler's Rest in Karratha. What delightful company, and they spoilt us!
Saturday in sad, dark vibe Roebourne.
This morning we rode up the north coast to Roebourne, to explore the old Roebourne jail which is now the town's museum and Information Centre. This is a group of old stone buildings, designed by a fellow called George Temple Poole in the 1880s, and they are attractive buildings to look at from the outside. The inside is the sad part, with iron bolts still on walls and iron bars on all the windows. Lots of photographs of tribal strong looking young Aboriginal men in chains stare out from the walls here. Most were captured by white pioneers for the "crimes" of cattle stealing, and sentenced to hard labour, and others were captured, "blackbirded", meaning enslaved to work on pearling luggers as divers, many of these men did not survive the dangers. The main effect of this racial genocide was that the tribal young men were taken away from their country and this had a devastating effect on the Aboriginal cultures up in the North West.
Roebourne's town pub, the Victoria Hotel, looks like a sad place, and I read that there used to be a lot of terrible fights there. The whole town just had a sad dark vibe to it, even though the spring time sun was shining today!
From Roebourne we rode further on to the little ghost town of Cossack, across more desolate flat land. George Temple Poole had also been the designer of the beautiful sturdy stone buildings in this little place, and some of the buildings have been restored. The Cossack Art Awards happens here every year and attracts a lot of big-name artists.
Cossack also has a sad history, of harsh conditions, cyclones blowing away wooden buildings (hence the magnificent stone houses), and blackbirded Aborigines diving for pearls in treacherous shark infested waters here. When the Cossack harbour waters became silted up, and the pearling became over-fished, the pearlers moved up to Broome, and a new harbour was set up at Point Samson, a little further north.
So on our bikes again, to explore pretty little Point Samson. This place has all modern buildings and looks like a modern resort town on pretty blue coastline. We then rode through the small town of Wickham on the way back; just a few streets and looking industrial.
On arrival back to our Shangri-La tent at Karratha we found 2 more motorcyclists, a man and a woman, had just set up their tents, both independent travellers from different parts of Australia. It's not often that we've seen other motorcyclists riding around our beautiful big country.
A Sunday Hike in the Hills.
The Information Centre in Karratha has pamphlets about "The Jaburara Trail" that goes from the Info Centre through the surrounding hills. This is a challenging rocky, hilly walking trail, so we were both glad we took our hiking sticks in the early morning spring sunshine. With my gammy knees I wouldn't be able to go hiking without my sticks! I felt like the beautiful rocky pale red countryside was going to swallow me up; it had a kind of spooky feeling to it. Wildflowers were blooming in some spots, and we also saw some very old Aboriginal rock carvings that were on places that overlook what is now the town of Karratha. We gazed over the blue ocean in the distance and the flat tidal lands that lead up to Karratha town.
Later, I googled for information about "the Flying Foam Massacre" that was on a sign on this hike. What a sad story here: the local Yuburara (or Jaburara) tribe had been totally wiped out over several months from February to May 1868, coordinated by a Government official in Roebourne, a man called Robert Scholl. A street is named after this man in Roebourne. This meant the whole Burrup Peninsula area from Flying Foam cove area to Karratha was now free for white settlers to exploit. A terrible history and at least it is now being officially documented. Once again, Dave and I realised we had never been told of this history when we were youngsters at school. These are now known as the Killing Times. Aboriginal people were taken as slaves (the official word is "indentured")for settelers and pastoralists to exploit. If they left a station they were arrested and jailed. The Indigenous people were chained by the neck and forced at gunpoint to walk for hundreds of miles, and police went on punishing parties, shooting the Aboriginals.
This journey around Australia is turning out to be a revealing history lesson for us both!
On arrival back to our tent site in Karratha we found ourselves sharing the campgrounds with 9 very noisy young European backpackers, and they were busily drinking lots of alcohol. Fortunately the caravan park Management came over to warn them of eviction if they didn't behave. This had the effect of quietening them down. Backpackers who travel in pairs are lovely, but those in large groups are always a social pain in the derriere! (French backpackers have an awful reputation among other campers!) Food gets stolen from camp kitchen fridges, noisy parties happen, and dirty smokers light up their cigarettes in camp kitchens, thinking they are exceptions to camp rules. Grrrr! But tonight, because the Big4 management was firm with warnings, the louts behaved.
We finished off our stay at Karratha by being spoilt again by niece Pauline and Rowan. They cooked a delicious meal at their home, using a thermomix to do this, even making yummy rocky road with this interesting machine.
Tomorrow we ride to Onslow.
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