Perth to Port Hedland and Sacked

And so, we leave Serpentine and head for Port Hedland, after finding out that Barry had been accepted for the position of Caretaker/groundsmen at the Port Hedland turf Club.

What were we in store for????

We were told to be there by the 1st April, so off we sail, in Big Red, and a late start to the day, only got us as far as Cervantes on the first leg of this 1,600 kms trip.

Got in late and booked in the caravan park, (which said it was $22 pn) and as soon as they saw us, the price went to $45 - why? Who knows.....We weren't taking up any more room than anyone else, and not like they were busy, as tourist season was still a way off yet.

Had time for a quick stroll along the beach before dinner and then an early night, as we had a few big days travel ahead of us.

Passing some spectacular scenery along the way, including the Barrier Range National Park, and unfortunately having to bypass the pinnacles on this occasion as it is just an amazing place to visit. But both of us have been there at various times, so we not too concerned.

We journeyed on and found a great free camp, just south of Carnarvon called Gladstone Lookout. Wow oh wow, what an amazing sight, from where were parked, with the sun setting over the Indian Ocean on one side and the magnificence of the red flat tops on the other. Just us camped there, along with a family of gnomes, who get to permanently enjoy the magnificent view, but could easily have stayed longer.

Stopped off at Carnarvon to stock up on supplies and weren't too keen on staying there, as it didn't seem  a very appealing place.

Made another 300 or so kilometers today, and camped at Yule River, another beautiful free camp beside the low waters of the Yule river.

Made it into Karratha early and thought we would ring 'Boss Hog' in Port Hedland, only to find out he was in Perth - so much for making the effort to get here by the 1st April????  This should have been a sign of things to come.

Just thought that we could have gone on as it was only another 2 hours and get to the race club, but he told us that no one else had keys to let us in???

So struggled to find accommodation in Karratha - drove into one caravan park, who wanted $60 for the night- so we just drove on out of there, and ended up in a dodgy looking park at Roeburn.

Now to spend three days here, while we could have been settled in at the race club, but managed to visit, Cossack, Wickham, Point Sampson and Dampier - home of Red Dog.

As we were soon to find out, Karratha and Port Hedland are controlled by the mining companies and contractors - all making a killing, and inflating the prices of absolutely everything, which makes it so hard for the average person to exist.  No where can you buy a house under $900,000, fuel prices are just hard to comprehend, when you see the gas fields as you drive past, and it is exported for 8 cents a litre and at the bowser you are paying around $1.15? BHP own most of Port Hedland, and as soon as a house comes on the market, they will purchase it at grossly inflated prices and build more units, houses and what ever else they can cram onto one block.  The mining companies, by all reports, pay no rates to the councils, but in return are expected to commit to community beautification programmes, of which there are plenty, however......once completed they are handed over to the council to maintain, and hence lies the problem...the council do not have the staff to maintain anything, as they cannot compete with the mines and contractors in regard to wages.  So therefore the towns look untidy and unappealing.

And so...we finally end up in port Hedland at the Race club, and still no sign of 'Boss Hog'.  Finally he turns up and we were to find out, that there was no way were we going to fit into the allocated site, and so were left hanging in the area where the bookies usually are on race day.....This is were we sat for 5 weeks, until such time as they had some power and water connected and the fence realigned so that we could fit in.

We wrongly assumed that our site might have been ready for us, but that alone took us 7 hours of cleaning up, and the bathrooms that were supposedly at our disposal were an absolute disgrace, and took us another 6 hours (with both of us working) to get them fit for human habitation.

The club house is closed after the last race meeting in August, and so hadn't been touched for 8 months and was infested with mice, cock roaches, rats and heavens knows what else.

Oh well, here we where and we were  and we were just prepared to make the most of it, and the extra dollars were not going to go astray and the free accommodation a real bonus.

The weather was still very hot, up around the 36c mark most days and very humid, so we would start at 6am and work our way through to about 10am beating the main heat of the day.

On the occasional weekend a team offering skydiving would come in and we were quite tempted to have a go, but....yes another but....after several of their clients left us with lots of mess to clean up, things did not go along so well with them after that, when we were forced to say something to them, but great to watch and one day we will have a go.

Each day the job list got longer and longer, but still expected to maintain our hours, then the unthinkable happened...........

Boss Hog was taken off down to Perth for an operation.  10 days he was gone, and it ended up that we hadn't been paid for 3 weeks.  The races were only just over a week away, and when he arrived back in town, we went down and handed our time sheets in, and were told the books were away being audited, and to come back the next day.  Yep ok, no worries, so off we went, to return the next day.

  So we took that in our stride and came back the next morning and walked into his office and as soon as he seen us he started flying into us, yelling and screaming and saying that he told us not to come until the next day. (this bloke is 83 years old).  His office is in a building, which is a museum, and it was full of people, so they all heard the whole thing.  He stands about 5’4” tall and was standing behind his desk pointing and poking his finger into Barry’s face.  I have never seen Barry lose his temper and when he started this, Barry stood up and started poking his finger into his face, so it was the tall against the short. Lol.  He then told us he didn’t have any cheques as he was waiting on a new cheque book, so over the course of a couple of days the story of the cheque book changed a number of times, so we didn’t know what to believe and were starting to smell a rat.

The argument was pretty fierce and he stood up and started to leave the office with Barry following, and by this stage, the old coote was lost for words and just left…..So then we told him we were on strike and would do no further work, until we got paid.

  He came down 2 days later and gave us the cheque and never said a word, just handed it to us and left.  We took the cheque down to the bank and asked to get immediate clearance on it, as we didn’t trust him at all, but you can no longer do that.

There was a committee meeting that night, and apparently he went into the meeting and just told them that he was sacking us, and gave no one the opportunity to have any sort of say.

It was only that the secretary, without whom this race club would not even exist, had the decency to tell us what had ensued at the meeting, that we were prepared to meet our fate.  By this time I was well and truly over it all and just wanted out - knowing what we did, I wanted Barry to beat him to it and resign, which in the end he saw the sense in it, so when he came down to pay us and hand us our letter of termination, we handed him the letter of resignation..but...yes another but...in our letter we requested copies of pay slips, tax paid, and superannuation and to actually sign a tax form....well he was fairly flawed by all this, and he told us not to come to the office till after 12 the next day..........it took him longer than that to get it all sorted...so in the end we had the better of him and were quite pleased with ourselves...ha ha ha ha..one up on you 'Boss Hog'!!!

Our Termination Letter

 

We were talking to a fellow that has done a lot of work for the club over the years, and we told him what had happened, and he just said “Get as far away from here as possible – just go”, this was one of many comments made to us, along with comments like, the race club has never looked so good.

So by the time we packed up and got fueled us it was very late, but Barry just wanted to go then and so we drove the 80kms up to DeGrey’s River and camped there, at the top camp spot and then found the nice spot down by the river the next morning, and that’s where we stayed for the next 9 days.  Just what we needed after the stressful time in Port Hedland.

So the moral of this story is that if you see a job advertised for Port Hedland Turf Club - run away as fast as you can!

Sunrise over the Race Track

Some of the enormous Diesel Engines

Salt Mine

Train Reflections

Salt being Trucked Out

On top of the Salt Mine

One of the 20 or so Large Vessels To Enter The Port

The Race Track at Sunrise

 

Our time in Port Hedland, whilst it will not hold fond memories for us, there were some interesting times, and it was great to see the salt mined and meet some of the genuine Pilbara people.

One such person, was Jim, an old gold miner and rigger, who has spent most of his years in Marble Bar.

One of the large Red Termite mounds - with a hard hat added

At the age of 83, he is finding it hard to cope with much in life at the moment and it was his wish to go to Marble Bar, for Anzac Day.  Unable to drive the 200 odd kilometers now, we offered to drive him out, and so after much preparation we headed out at 3 am, with him showing us many a highlight and telling many a story along the way.  We pulled up in a rest area at 4.30 am for coffee, and by the time we got into Marble Bar, we had missed the Dawn service, but the brekkie was just great, so that made it worth while. lol.  Jim had a great time catching up with old friends and introducing us, and it was just a great day.  The people of Marble  Bar are as far removed from those in Port Hedland, as you could possibly imagine, and are the true people of the Pilbara region, unlike those in the Hedland.  When travelling this part of Western Australia, just go into Port Hedland, fuel up, supply up, and just get on out!

Marble Bar War Memorial

Barry with a piece of Jasper that is mined at Marble Bar

Marble Bar Hills

Jim and an old mate catching up

The Marble Bar

Gold Mine Operation

 

Morning Smoko at 4.30am

That brings us to the end of another blog, and although not a pleasant experience on the whole, it is one that hopefully we will look back on in a few years and have a good laugh about, but there are always positives to be had, and we did have that.

We move on now, and have decided to head north and eventually eastwards, as it is just too expensive here to stay for any length of time. Western Australia is killing it's own tourist industry!