BigRedBusTouringCo.com: Perth to Port Hedland and Sacked

BigRedBusTouringCo.com: 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/grounds...

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!

The Blog of all Blogs

                                                             

Oh we know how much you have been missing our blogs, so hope this one makes up for it. So sit back and ready yourself for a big read.

This will take you from our last blog, when we left our house sit at Koorda, and left our friends, Greg and Sandy behind and headed to Hopetoun for another house sit.

Leaving Greg, Sandy and Sherry Behind

We made a stop along the way and stayed with friends Wendy and Scott, on their lovely farm just out of Dowerin, and caught up with Helen and Rob for a few days, and it was just great.

Woolshed

Shearing Shed

Helen Me, Eb, and Wendy

  

        

On Sunday morning we had to head off, to allow ourselves enough travelling time to get to Hopetoun, which was over 700kms away.

We just got into Northam when the bus started loosing power and as we were out on the road to York, where we had intended to while away a few hours, there were very few places to try and turn this huge thing around.

After a few phone calls to our friends Scott and Wendy, who ably assisted us in finding a mechanic on  Sunday morning (how lucky were we!!), we managed to chug the bus into Northam to the doctors.

This mechanic was just amazing and was so helpful and would recommend him to anyone. After never having worked on one of these vehicles before, within about 15 minutes he was fairly sure that he knew what was wrong.

As it turned out, his assumption that is was the catalytic converters was exactly right.  So it was a very quick re think of our situation and a mad packing of bags, as we had to leave the bus behind and head to Hopetoun in the ute.  Fortunately this next house sit we were able to use the house.  He assured us, that he would try and have the bus ready within a week.

And so, it was with a strange feeling that we left the bus behind and headed south.  Not too many places to stay along that route, but ended up staying at Wave Rock Caravan Park, for a ridiculous amount of money, for a sub standard cabin. We did have the opportunity to go out and walk Wave Rock, which is quite an amazing sight and a place that has always been on our bucket list.  The morning was just perfect, so nice and clear, with just  a nice amount of cloud around to make it interesting.  

Wave Rock

Hippo's Yawn

At 14 metres high, and 110m long, the face of Wave Rock appears ready to crash onto a pre-historic surf, now frozen in time.

Believed to have formed over 2700 million years ago, Wave Rock is part of the northern face of Hyden Rock.  The shape of the wave is formed by gradual erosion of the softer rock beneath the upper edge, over many centuries.  There are actually several examples of such "waves" in the Hyden area, and if you have the time, it is well worth the effort to see some of the other smaller, but equally spectacular, ones.  

The colours of the Wave are caused by the rain washing chemical deposits (carbonates and iron hydroxide) down the face, forming vertical stripes of greys reds and yellows.  If you can stay a little longer, it is also worth seeing the Rock at different times of the day, as the changing sunlight alters its colours and appearance.

In addition to being an impressive tourist attraction, the rock has been converted in to a catchment for the town's water supplies, with a foot-high concrete wall around the upper edge of Hyden Rock directing rainfall into a storage dam.

The Hump

Further on out past the rock is another amazing type of monolith – almost looking like a small Uluru, called "The Hump".   At the back of this monolith is

Mulka's Cave is located within the vicinity  of  Wave  Rock in Hyden,  Western Australia.  T he name Mulka comes from an Aboriginal legend associated with the cave.  Mulka was the illegal son of woman who fell in love with a man with whom marriage was forbidden according to their law.

It is believed that a result of breaking these rules, she bore a son with crossed eyes.        Even though he grew to be an outstandingly strong man of colossal height, his crossed eyes prevented him from aiming a spear accurately and becoming a successful hunter.

Inside Mulka's Cave

Entrance To Mulka's Cave

Out of frustration it is said Mulka turned to catching and eating human children and he became the terror of the district.
He lived in Mulka's Cave, where the imprints of his hands can still be seen, much large and higher than that of an ordinary man.

Leaving Hyden behind us , we headed further south towards Kings Lake and on towards Ravensthorpe.  There is some beautiful country down through this area, and would have just been great to have had more time to have a proper look around...maybe next time.

Left Hanging

Ravensthorpe is a mining town - two main mines, one mining Lithium and the other mining nickel. Both large employers and make up the majority of both Ravensthorpe and Hopetoun. A large proportion of the houses built in each town, are owned by the mining companies and rented at hugely subsidised rents to their employees.  They are mostly homes made of colorbond and make for some very attractive homes.  Hopetoun, really doesn't have a lot going for it, and being a largely transient population, there appears to be little community spirit, and greatly lacking in its general facilities...can't say it came anywhere close to any of our previous house sitting jobs.  Did enjoy spending time with Donna, Rob and Jas.

Ravensthorpe & Hopetoun enjoy a temperate Mediterranean climate with beautiful sunny winter days and cool summer nights. Ancient mountain ranges, rocky hills, rugged river valleys, vast sand plains, estuaries and large inlets provide the area with a wealth of natural beauty to explore.

Fitzgerald National park, borders onto both towns, and its escarpment is truly spectacular, but unfortunately has been closed to visitors for about 2 years, due to budgetry constraints.  We did manage to get to see the western side of the park from the Albany side - but more of that later.

Our house sitting job was for 3 weeks and following on from that, we moved the bus around the corner onto Rob and Donna's front lawn for a couple of weeks, and this gave us some time to go out camping and try out our camping gear at a paradise called Starvation Bay.  Starvation got it's name from the days when the Rabbit Proof Fence was being built and the workers used to wander down to the Bay in search of food and water, and many died of starvation in their efforts.

Had a great few days out there, and what a very cheap but beautiful camp spot.

Starvation Bay

Algae Bloom Effecting the Waters of Starvation Bay

Fascination

Another Chair Bites The Dust

 While in  Hopetoun, as most will know, Barry contracted shingles and it was quite a drama, attempting to access health care, and how very hopeless it was.  After a 400kms round trip to Esperance, we saw the doctor in A & E, only to be told there was nothing he could do and so after 4 hours we left,  still no further along.  So after much drama we finally got to see a doctor in Hopetoun who started him on the appropriate medication and he has thankfully made a full recovery.  No way in Heaven could I live in that town, knowing that the health care system is that appalling. WA Health should be ashamed and embarrassed, and the mining companies who employ so many should have a doctor on call 24 hours a day.

Later on, we did get a chance to go into Esperance and visit and had a lovely drive around the place, and it is a very beautiful place, with its pristine beaches and cragged and majestic sand stone cliffs.  Take a walk out on the historic old jetty and visit Sammy the Sea Lion, is is almost resident there.

Sammy

Historic Jetty

From The Lookout

Pristine Beaches and Cliffs

Some Locals Enjoying Early Morning Drinkies

Salt Lake

Grain Handling

Esperance is home to approximately 10,000 people, many still involved with agriculture, but now home to many fly in, fly out workers, many areas now almost seemingly exempt from this transient population.  The port is  a very large grain handling facility, and sees millions of tonnes of grain exported every year.

After leaving Hopetoun, we headed east towards Albany.  We travelled about 150k's running into huge swarms of locusts - They were just huge and so many of them, and they sure took some cleaning off the bus.  We stayed the night at Jerramungup at their little caravan park and for just $20 pn it was just great value and met some wonderful people staying there.  We stayed a couple of days and enjoyed a visit to Bremer Bay, which is just one of the most spectacular places one could choose to visit.

Bremer Bay - Heaven On Earth

Old Museum and Cafe at Bremer Bay

Fitzgerald National Park-West Mount Barren

Some of 80 different types of Banksia's in the Park.

The Beautiful Point Anne

Where we pulled up camp at the Kalgan River Caravan Park. The book said $22 , and as soon as they saw us the price went up to $35! Happens all to regularly here in WA. not encouraging tourism at all and no wonder there are so few grey nomads over here.

An interesting and historical pace, Albany is a great place to pull up and spend a few days.

Exploration of the coastline around what is now the thriving regional centre known as Albany began in 1627, when Dutchman Pieter Nuyts sailed the 'Gulden Zeepaardt' through the Great Australian Bight. 

Successive explorers included George Vancouver, who entered and named King George III Sound in 1791, but was unimpressed with the area's soil. A decade later Matthew Flinders arrived here and, in 1803, Nicholas Baudin sailed his ship into King George III Sound, leading one of a number of French expeditions to the area.

Whalers and sealers working the Southern Ocean were also frequenting the area by the 1820s. Frenchman Dumont D'Urville's visit in 1826 was a driving factor which inspired the British to formalize their possession of the area, a plan that had existed for a number of years.

Another reason was to establish a penal colony in Western Australia, as there was a desire to close the Port Macquarie (NSW) convict station, although this did not eventuate.

Albany Beach

The Natural Bridge

So after a few days, we departed Albany and headed for Donnybrook.  A beautiful drive up through the hills of the Jarrah forests.  Bit scary doing that road in the bus, but taking it steady, you get to see a whole lot, and well worth the visit.

Donnybrook, is a small town, known mostly for its apples, and proper apples they were too...so nice to taste a real apple.

The town of Donnybrook was gazetted in 1894. It was first settled around 1842 when George Nash and others moved to the area. They named the place "Donnybrook" after the suburb of Dublin, Ireland that they came from. The eastern part of the town was formerly called Minninup. The western portion of the townsite is currently known as Irishtown.

The population of the town was 430 (294 males and 136 females) in 1898.

In 1897, Richard Hunter discovered gold about 6 kilometres south of the Donnybrook townsite.Hunter eventually sold out to Fred Camilleri (a well known prospector from Kalgoorlie) and Camilleri was able to interest the internationally renowned Polish geologist Modest Maryanski. It was on the basis of Maryanski's report that a new company "Donnybrook Goldfields Ltd" was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1899. A mini gold rush occurred, resulting in the Government gazetting the Donnybrook Goldfield - in the process making provision for a new town to be called "Goldtown". From the census of 1901, it was known over 200 gold miners were camped on the goldfields. The excitement was short-lived however, and the Hunters Venture mine closed in August 1903. The area was worked during the Great Depression by locals Laurie and Foster Payne, then re-pegged and explored during the 1980s and again from 2004-5.

Donnybrook has a transit park, which provides all the basic necessities one requires, and is based at the back of the shopping centre at the cricket club.  On comparison reasonable value for our $27 per night, but on comparison, in NSW it was the equivilant of a showground, which would have cost us somewhere between $10- $15 a night.

Basing ourselves, here we toured the towns of Busselton and Bunnbery. Both very much touristy towns, but still with that crystal blue waters, which make it so appealing and just stunning.

Busselton Jetty

A 'Round'Pool Table - never seen one before!

Ngilgi Caves

In 1850 timber was being exported and the small town prospered. Jetties for this purpose were built at Wonnerup, Busselton and Quindalup. Of these, only the Busselton Jetty remains. At about 1,800 metres in length, this is one of the longest timber jetty structures in the world and has become synonymous with Busselton.

No longer can you stroll along the jetty, without paying the $30 pp cost of catching the little train and viewing the underwater aquarium which has been built at the end of the jetty. If you want to walk it, you have to wait until after 6pm to do the stroll, so we left it at that and continued on our way. 

Today the main industries in the Shire are dairying, beef cattle, sheep, wine, mining, timber, fishing, light industry and tourism.

In close proximity to Busselton is the small seaside town of  Yallingup  and a short drive will take you to the Ngilgi caves.  This was more to our choosing and we descended into these magnificent piece of natures wonder - the 42 meters below ground.  The cavern is just amazing and the National Park rangers do a fantastic and informative tour of the cave and then you are left to your own devices to explore at your hearts content.

We visited the Bush Shack Brewery, which is where we found the round pool table, something we had never seen before we sample the fine brews which included raspberry beer, chilli, ginger beer, and many other fine selections, over our picnic lunch in the picnic area out the front of the bar.  Great place to visit and the day was finished off with a visit to one of the best ice creameries ever...

As far as the South West goes, it is really beautiful, but after the fires there this year, we didn't feel inclined to go that way this time, and it was always our intention that we would be back next year and would have the time to see it when it looked more like its normal self.

After having now completed a large part of our trip, and seen a large part of Western Australia, it is our feelings, that Grey Nomads are not particularly welcome over here, with the inflated costs of accommodation, entry fees, and very few free or reasonably priced camping spots.  When on the road full time, by the time you pay $200-$300 pw accommodation costs, it doesn't leave much else to spend, and we enjoy being able to pull up in places like Goomalling, Dowerin, Koorda etc, where you can get great accommodation at very affordable prices and all the essentials we require, leaving us more money to spend in these small, but very vibrant communities - thats what we like to believe and that is what we enjoy.

How things change in retrospect??

Leaving Donnybrook behind, we headed back to Serpentine - back to where we had done our house sitting for our friend Darren.  Lovely to catch up with him again and spend some time there.

Whilst we were there, we saw an ad in the paper for a caretaker/groundsmen at Port Hedland Turf Club. Barry decided to ring up and find out more about it, and next thing we know we were packed up and headed to Port Hedland.  Little did we know, what was to lay ahead of us..........

To be continued.............................