After exchanging some travel information with them we drove into Port Hedland to visit Woolies, get fuel and look around. Back at the caravan we
enjoyed a brief lunch and then headed to the Airport.
We joined the pilot of a twin engine Piper Navajo on his mail run to a couple of remote cattle stations. The first station was Yarrie about 160km east of Port Hedland. The flight route took us along the De-Grey River for about 160km where we landed on a typical station airstrip made of red dirt. Yarrie station covers about 1 Million acres and they run around 12,000 head of Droughtmaster cattle, specifically bred for this arid region of Australia.
As the airstrip is a couple of km's from the homestead, they send out a car which receives the mailbag and also brings out the bag with new mail. The mail delivery happens only once a week out here but Australia Post is obliged to provide mail services to all Australians, no matter how remote they live. Yardie station is currently home to 14 people as it is mustering season. After a bit of chat we were back in the plane and headed further east at only 1500ft so we could get very close look at the landscape.
A further 50km East and we landed at Warrawagine station which has a couple of dirt airstrips that are bigger than Albury airport. The station also covers about 1 Million acres but they run 25,000 head of Droughtmaster and employ 30 people. Currently their crew was camped for mustering about 2 hrs away from the homestead. The mustering at this station is done with a couple of helicopters, some buggies, motorbikes and horses. They have their own cook with them and have their own trucks to bring the cattle back to the yards near the homestead.
A truck on a station is not just a normal truck, it's actually a road train with 3 double decker trailers. One person from the station drives to Port Hedland once a fortnight to buy food. Their fruit and veg is bought directly at the market in Perth and shipped to Port Hedland. A typical shopping bill at Woolies is around $2000 and going shopping means leaving the station at 5am and returning well after dark. They buy no meat as the slaughter all their own.
The kids on the station receive their education via school of the air which is no longer via 2-way radio but via a satellite internet link.
Warrawagine station doesn't have any neighbours to east, where the station ends is start of the dessert which is home to millions of camels. Whenever they come across a camel they shoot it and eat it - apparently camel is very nice eating. Linda (who lives on the station) used to have a pet camel but it got out and ran away.
Mustering is big out here, it starts in April after the wet and finishes in September. Linda reckons the best time on the station is the wet season when it's quiet and there are only 4 people on the station.
All Pilbara stations have many mining tenements on their pastoral leaseholds. Most of the rock around here has 3 distinct layers, the first is iron ore, the second is copper and then comes Maganese. There are also some gold deposits. Many mining claims are pegged out but are not currently mined. The mining operations use the stations access roads and airstrips for which they pay the station owner but station owner's have no right to the proceeds from mining activities.
The flight back to Port Hedland took nearly an hour and we got a great view of the town and the port facilities from above. Port Hedland airport has many airliners coming through to transport the mining workers. The airport carpark is full of mining cars which are very easy to spot with their flag and yellow/black number on the side.
Tomorrow we'll move onto Pardoo Station, then 80 mile beach, Port Smith Lagoon and finally Barnhill Station before we get into Broome. I'm not sure if we have any phone reception between Port Smith and Broome so you may not see an update to this blog for a week or two.
For those interested in todays flight: here is the link to the flight map.
http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view/?trip_id=263968
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