Len and Hazel's Travels: Port Headland 01-03 October

Please forgive me Broome. You are not the most expensive place in the WA. That honor definitely belongs to Port Headland- $54 a night!!!
That's FIFTY FOUR DOLLARS real Aussie money, and there are no real options. Sure there is a caravan park in South Headland, but that is full to the gunwales (and looks pretty ordinary for the $48 they wanted), and there is the Golf Club which only charges $25 a night, but that is pretty steep for somewhere that looks like the town dump - not appealing at all if you are planning to spend a few days. So it was Cooke Point all the way to the money lenders.... I now officially hate Gina R and the BHP Biliton board for driving up the prices around here. Your basic three bedroom fibro humpie is renting for $1300 a week, and anything remotely decent is $1800+, so in comparison the caravan park is pretty reasonable. Still don't like paying it though. At least the diesel is cheap (relatively) here.
Port Headland is basically a support town for the loading of BHP iron ore and Rio Tinto Salt onto vast cargo ships. There is the Nelson Point facility where the ore trains from Newman are unloaded; the port, where the unloaded ore is picked up again (by a huge dredge type machine called a reclaimer) and then conveyored to the waiting ships; two pubs (one of which is four and a half stars); four banks; two cafes (two more are being renovated); three museums (all closed); an op shop; three servos and a Woolies, and that about sums up the town. Even the banks are planning to move to South Headland, so soon all that will be left is the trains, the conveyor belts and the docks. Oh, and the houses which are rented out for exorbitant sums to the mining company staff and contractors. And all covered in Pilbra Snow a.k.a. red iron ore dust.
I shouldn't be too harsh though as some of the streets in the few blocks of suburbia look very nice, with well maintained houses and lots of palm trees. You could almost forget where you were. Almost.
Still, an interesting place.
Met Cadel Evans European Father at the pool the other night. He is a wiry little Swiss guy who rode his bicycle from Darwin to Melbourne eight years ago and is now taking his wife around in a motor home to show here where he had been. Apparently he has spent time with Cadel in Oz and trains with him when he is in Switzerland. It must all be true - he had a Team BMC hat an everything.
Hazel was chatting to a bloke at the clothesline this morning (as you do) and he told her how his misses was now taking turns to empty the port-a-pottie cassette in the dump point. Apparently he is now in trouble with the other blokes as he has let her "Cross the Blue Line" and do a boy job. Good on him I reckon.