Pardoo Station

Port & South Hedland are not really a tourist destination, just large industrial areas which surrounded the small town centre that houses a bit of support infrastructure.

We were glad to move on and an early start got us out of South Hedland around 8am.

In amongst the large road trains we followed the road along the coast. The road trains soon left the main road to go into the mine sites and by the time we were 100km way from Port Hedland there were no more mining road trains.

About 130km out of Port Hedland we turned onto a dirt road and after a further 14kms arrived at Pardoo Station which is close to the Ocean. Pardoo is a working cattle station on 500,000 acres of land stretching about 80km along the coastline. At the moment they run about 6000 head of Santa Gertrudis which feed on a variety of Spinifex.

The station enjoys excellent (but salty) water which emerges from a 90m deep bore into the Canning Artesian Basin.

Pardoo station used to be an outpost to the De Grey station which was established in the 1880's. In 1904 the outpost was sold off and became an independent station. Since then it had six different owners.

The caravan facility is great with some grassy areas and unlimited power available 24hrs - they've got a big generator! The station has a shop, restaurant and swimming pool. In the evening they cook a 2 course station meal for the station workers which is also open to park guests at $20/person and is pretty much an all you can eat affair.

We drove about 5km's on a station road to Pardoo Creek which is a tidal creek frequented by fishermen. We got there just on low tide which was about 5mt below the high tide mark. There wasn't much water and we saw the rocks on the creek bed bottom. Suddenly the creek started to run, quite strong, and within a minute or two the water was a foot deep.

As the tide was coming in with a great rush it brought lots little fish with it and the Pelicans followed along having a great feed. We also spotted some larger fish just below the surface with only the tip of their dorsal fin visible. A turtle was also partaking in the feeding frenzy and it was quite amazing to see this creek go from no visible wildlife to an absolute smorgasbord within the space of only ten minutes.

We received advise to fish in this spot around the high tide later in the afternoon. After lunch we went back and were amazed by the amount of water and the height of creek. However, the fish were on the bite before we got there and, once again, we missed out on catching dinner.

Although before we went to the creek I was assured that there were no crocs, the same evening we heard reports from other fishermen that there is croc lurking in the area and it has been seen at the fishing spot a number of times. Some people said wan't go back to fish that spot, whilst others said no more fish cleaning on the water's edge. One should always tanned a few meters back from the water's edge when fishing - there is no room for complacency.

We had a fairly late night as Alan and Judy, a couple from Bright, came over for a bit of a chat and to exchange some travel yarns. We meet them first at Cape LeGrand (Esperance) a few weeks back and have been catching up with them numerous times as they are travelling along the same track.

Unfortunately no travel map today as we've been without internet for a few days and therefore the recording was automatically deleted.