20:18.7S 118:3E

 

Funny night last night with Steven and Gerry, on their boys’ fishing weekend.  They are both living and working with their families in the mining town of Newman.  They told us a lot about life in the Pilbara (pronounced pillbruh).  We had seen a t shirt “Pilbara: fit in or f... off”.  We assumed this was aimed at tourists, but Steve said it is aimed at the “fly in, fly out” workers who make loadsamoney and create mayhem.  You can see the wealth, big fancy houses surrounded by this breathtaking landscape (but it doesn’t make for cosy towns).  The scale of the BHP Billiton export site has to be seen to be believed.  All the towwns around here – Port Hedland, Newman, Tom Price – revolve around BHP.  Another neighbour told us a nice house is $4000 a week to rent, ordinary house $1500.  His caravan is $400 a week plus electricity.  That’s why people fly in, fly out.  We watched 2 lunar phenomena with Steve and Gerry – the Stairway to the Moon, which happens on this coast at full moon, and a lunar eclipse, and drank a few beers.

 

This world is so different from Sydney and Melbourne, lyou could be on a different continent.  There is not much livestock to be seen, but lots of dead stock on the road.  Today in the space of 5 minutes we saw a flattened, sundried whole cow followed by a fresh kill, huge and whale like and bloated.  What is surprising is that they just stay their, you see the odd crow picking at them, that’s all.  There is a brand of beef jerky called Road Kill!!  Sandy was chatting to a roadtrain driver in the roadhouse, who said “if a cow is in the way you just hit it, you can’t stop”.  The road trains going between Newman and Tom Price mines and Port hedland have 4 trailers, they are huge, and dwarf their drivers.

 

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