Samuel flies out from Brisbane this week to go all the way across Australia to Port Hedland.
Port Hedland is way up in the north, 1761km from Perth.
I’ve had a google about to see what Port Hedland is like and I think Sam is in for an interesting time.
It can be summed up a place where everything is on a huge scale. High temperatures reaching over 40 degrees C for eight months of the year. A huge iron ore industry with long, long trains (up to 3km long) carrying the iron ore to a massive port facility. Large numbers of big tonnage ships coming and going from the port. A salt industry that produces mountains of salt. Ferocious cyclones that visit the area all too regularly. Since 1910 there have been 49 cyclones that have caused gale-force winds at Port Hedland. On average this equates to about one every two years.
Sam will be working a 4 week cycle with 3 weeks on and 1 week off. The company will fly him to and from Brisbane for his week off and he is planning on using his week off to fly back here to Wellington.
Not sure where he will be staying in Port Hedland yet but he may find himself being put up in the detention centre there. This was built a few years back when Australia was getting loads of boat people entering the country along the coastline. It’s not required now and has been converted to accommodation for the mining workforce.
Looking at photos of Port Hedland, you can see that it juts out from the mainland. The original inhabitants, the Karriyarra Aboriginal people, call the place Marapikurrinya for the hand shaped formation of the tidal creeks coming off the natural harbour. Unfortunately its location is not good when cyclones arrive with resulting in the town suffering gale force winds and flooding from storm surges. A new town called South Hedland was built inland to avoid the worst of this weather.

Here’s a tip for Samuel. They say there is a stairway to the moon at Port Hedland. But you will only see it at low tide when there is a full moon. What you need to do is, at dusk, position yourself on a foreshore where there is a view towards the rising moon (i.e. east). A stairway will magically appear as the moon rises. That’s what I’ve read anyway …might have to smoke a little bit of something to make it work perhaps?
The port handles the largest tonnage of any port in Australia. At the port the iron-ore is unloaded, screened, crushed, stockpiled and then conveyed out onto the pier on a massive conveyor system. Huge iron-ore carriers frequent the port, exporting the iron-ore to Japan, Europe, China and South Korea.

I’m not sure where Sam will be working - it may be Port Hedland on the coast or it might be inland at the mines Themselves.
Newman is the big mining town in the Pilbara.
It serves the two huge mines at Mount Whaleback and Orebody 29.
The Eastern Pilbara is one of the most isolated and inhospitable regions in Australia. Temperatures in summer time hover around 40°C and the hot winds blow in off the Great Sandy Desert.
Sounds like a fun place.

Port Hedland

Please Select Country

Add To Favorite