29^th July: Port Hedland

Another train has roared in on the other side of the mudflats and is tipping its load out – 3 carriages at a time as a plane takes off to the sound of the background rumble of machinery! What a noisy place!

We went to Marble Bar today, somewhere we didn't go last time because it was a terrible road and there didn't seem much point. Well, the road is sealed now and it was an interesting day. 200 kms down, Marble Bar has the reputation of being the hottest town in Australia and they do seem to be a bit obsessed by this. They have an electronic thermometer in the main street which displays the temperature digitally. The highest today was 31 C which is very pleasant but then it is winter! Apparently, the record was 160 days straight over 38.7 C.

Gold was discovered here in 1891 and the town boomed. Now there are just 400 people and the town has the layout of an old mining community – buildings scattered around, old disused buildings and some very grand edifices left over from Victorian times. But there are contradictions: the 100+ year old Iron-clad Hotel (built out of galvanised iron) and the brand new council buildings. Everything is air-conditioned! There is a very moving War Memorial in a park whiich has a covered children's playground and one of those new electronic toilets. Door opens and closes at a push of a button, flushes automatically and talks and plays music while you are in there.(“What the world needs more is love, sweet love”!)

The Marble Bar of the name is a natural stone barrier occurring across the Coongan River which flows near the town. Only it isn't marble as the early settlers thought but Jasper – a 12 kilometre thick belt of volcanic rock spewed into an inland sea from the centre of the earth almost 3,500 million years ago and then covered by sedimentary layers. Thus it is an unusually large and impressive water-polished rock bar across the river surrounded by rugged hills. Water has been caught in large bird attracting water-holes and it is truly a lovely place. Two main waterholes, Marble Bar Pool and Chinaman's Pool (just past Garden Road and so we surmise that a Chinese man had market gardens watered by this pool during the gold rush) contain fish, flocks of corellas, rainbow bee-eaters and finches as well as the odd pelican or two!

Marble Bar Pool

Chinaman Pool

We walked over the rocks, taking photos after we had tipped water over the most spectacular examples of jasper to highlight the colours. Jaspar is red chert and is in layers between bands of black, white and grey volvanic rock.

This is the aactual bar (as in barrier).

 

 There are some impressive examples in the RSL memorial and the Council buildings – jasper boulders 1 metre or more in height and very red and black. 

Jasper is a semi-precious stone used in jewellery and decoration. We had a chance to fossick for some at a particular spot only as there is a $10.000 fine for anyone caught trying to steal souvenirs from any where else and we found some nice examples. I really don't know if we should be adding' not only shells, but also rocks to the weight of the vans.

We visited the museum at the Comet Mine, now mothballed, but once a profitable operation. There is still gold there and at a number of other places in this region but at the moment developing the mines is not viable. Manganese is now the highly sought after mineral and there are many black road trains on the roads. (The red ones are iron ore but most of that comes by proper trains – 3 kms long.)

An interesting day !