Port Hedland

Geez, I wish I had something exciting to say about Port Headland. It’s where the iron ore meets the sea, essentially. The only reason we stopped was the prospect of free camping in a council approved location for three nights and the usual re-stocking of the larder. Free camping, even in this situation can be a misnomer, depending on the Council. For example, No washing to be hung up outside the van. It’s like “you can park, but don’t look like you’re actually staying here.” Bad luck if you have a camper trailer, pop-top or roof top. No toilet, no stay. That’s just Port Headland Council. At least there was free water. Why wouldn’t there be? I’ll tell you about Karratha in my next post.

So, we had a sows ear of a destination, what could we do? Well, the port itself is basically off limits to us ordinary folk, although the entrance does see a regular conga line of bulk ore carriers being escorted in. The turnaround is pretty remarkable – in and out in around 24 hours. And, you can even book a tour on an escort tug, if you want to get up close and personal. We did spy a very modest pier, and after speaking to a couple of regular anglers there, and seeing what they were catching, decided this could be our best chance to land SOMETHING.

The next morning, we called into the bait shop to pick up some prawns and headed down. Tamika caught a couple of small fry, but the hoodoo had been broken. My rod had been strapped to the roof for the best part of a year, so I thought it prudent to give the reel of generous helping of WD40. Unfortunately, WD40 doesn’t fix brittle line, so it became a sequence of sinker-hook-bait-nibble-repeat. After the third attempt, I thought it was over for me, so I quietly scrolled through whatever was news on my phone and left Tamika to it.

A little while later, for some reason that seemed to defy logic, I kitted up again for one last try. Second throw in, BANG! I had hooked something, and as I reeled it out of the water upwards towards me, the only thing I could shout was “It’s EDIBLE!, it’s EDIBLE!” And it WAS, baked a la Tamika special, washed down with the last decent bottle of Riesling in the cupboard.

So, THAT was exciting. We stocked up and laundered – I hung our washing out regardless and we slipped quietly out of town just after lunch on the third day, stopping first to stock up on midgie repellent and citronella candles for the girl. We knew where out next destination would be and the midgie welcome mat was definitely going to be out for us when we arrived.