KARRATHA & DAMPIER

From the comfort of our concreted cara/park at Point Samson we journeyed the 50 or so klms to check out Karratha and Dampier.  Along the way we continued to be passed either way by huge trucks sometimes with 3 or 4 bogeys behind.
Each town had that dusty/hot highly industrialised look we had seen before and as they were on the coast they each had a port and the huge tankers were there loading whatever had been produced, dug up etc.  A lot of the houses were in the modern style in these growing townships as a lot of projects in this state are still evolving and expanding.    We saw those famous names BHP Biliton - Rio Tinto etc. on billboards and front gates and wondered why we did not have shares in these obviously mega companies.
Salt was another thing produced that I was not aware of, great hills of it after being in settling ponds.
All around as we drove along the highways were hills composed of boulders of red and black rocks just waiting to be mined ?   Actually the mine sites were off the main roads, but there were lots and lots of vehicles which belonged to them and they made up the bulk of the traffic on the roads.
We also observed long, long trains carrying iron ore, in hundreds of bulk freight carriages pulled by up to 5 or 6 engines.