11 August 2013 – Port Hedland and South Hedland

This morning we said our goodbyes to Ken and Heather and drove to Port Hedland.  As you can imagine, it is simply a bit mining town.  We drove straight to the port lookout area and watched a few boats being loaded while the kids had a play at a nearby park.  Then we headed to the information centre to grab some brochures before driving to Cooke  Point to attempt getting a site for the caravan.  All the signs out front stated that they were full, but three caravans were lined up in their driveway to try their luck at getting in – so we decided to try our luck too!  Fortunately, they offered us their last available powered site so we jumped at it.  As we were back in air conditioning we got the kids to do a few hours of schoolwork before heading out to South Hedland to do some shopping.  We were nearly there when Josh noticed a park area which looked more like a car sale lot.  We just had to go for a drive thru it of course and on doing so, Josh recognised a car parked, belonging to Bruce and Jenny, our friends that we’d met on the day that we crossed from Queensland into the Northern Territory.  We wound the windows down and called out to them – so odd to run into them like this.  We had a quick chat and arranged to meet them after doing a bit of shopping.  They had recently arrived in Port Hedland and were here to stay for at least the rest of the year, as they had both been hired to work at the mine – great money and accommodation provided.  How’s that for earning a bit of travelling pocket money?  After a visit to Kmart for a few items of warmer clothing, we went back to their house this afternoon for a catch up on what each other had been doing before again heading back to the van to do hours more of school work so that it could all be posted tomorrow…  We probably missed out on a big tour of Port Hedland but we got the gist of the town.