Broome to Port Hedland 605km
Spoke to Macca Australia All Over. You can hear the conversation here (link). We were to stop at the roadhouse ~70km from Broome however, Neil was chatting to Macca and rode past. Due to fuel consumption concerns, we rode most of the 300+km to Sandfire Roadhouse at 95km/h.
After about 150km, we stopped for a break at Lagrange rest area and were surprised to see a solar power, with diesel back-up, EV charging station.
Met some caravanners at Sandfire (they were too young to be grey nomads) who heard us on Australia All Over. We had a good chat about our ride and their travels.
We arrived in Port Hedland and met Shelly, who was kind enough to put us up for the night. Shelly is a proud local and suggested a couple of places to sightsee and to eat. Before dinner at the Esplanade Hotel, we had a look around town and checked out the ships from Marapikurrinya Park. This was a good ship viewing place and had a nice children’s playground.
Port Hedland is a 24/7 iron ore and salt shipping terminal. The ship pilots are flown to and from the ships in helicopters. They seem to be on a busy schedule as we heard the choppers very often. From one of the observation points, we countered around 10 ships on the horizon, there may well have been several more.
Due to the active nature of the port, the town has a red dust tinge. However, there was no unpleasant odour.
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