Day 80 12th July 2014 Saturday. Kevin left at 8am to drive to Pt Hedland 15km to walk along the seafront. He was gone for a good 3 hours and I thought he might have got lost. Meanwhile dad and I tried to install the new gas struts under the bed but were not able to as we couldn’t get all 3 screws in place. Very frustrating and hard work holding the bed up to do the work in a confined space. Have to now leave it for the experts. Will call Camerons on Monday. After lunch we all headed to Pt Hedland firstly to Don Rhodes Mining outdoor Museum which had various train engines and old mining equipment. We then went to Marapikurrinya Park which is at the Ports jetty area. Had a wonder around and there were people fishing off the jetty and also on the rocks. We then went to the seafarers centre for our tour. Kathy, our host explained the history of the centre and the port itself. They provide 6 launch services each day and 8 trips to the local shopping centre for the seafarers. The centre is not for profit and is run by 12 staff and volunteers. The Port itself is massive and this cannot be seen from land. We were bussed to the jetty and got on our launch along with 6 seafarers returning to various boats. We cruised around the harbour and saw all 16 berths. BHP has 8, Fortescue Metals has 4 and the Port Authority has 4. There are plans for further berths including Roy Hill currently under construction (Riina Rhinhardt). There can be up to 40 boats also waiting to come into the port and the stop at the 42km mark. The berths load iron ore, manganese & chromite, copper, salt, fuel and general. Ships loading rate is up to 12000 tonnes per hour. The tour was very interesting and we all enjoyed it. On the way home we stopped at the salt pile and train tracks to take some photos. While we were there a train came into Pt Hedland that was 250 carriages long containing iron ore. The train driver even tooted his horn to us up above. There are 22+ trains that come in over a 24 hour period every day. After tea it was canasta again but as it was chilly we came inside our van. The boys won again. Bugga, they are getting cocky.
