DAY 6 Pilbara – Kimberley Trip
BEETALOO – STREAKY BAY
Today was a day that felt like we would melt whilst travelling. Thankfully we had replaced our air conditioner before the trip. The temperature outside reached 42C in places. We made our way down Eyre’s Highway to Streaky Bay and are camped near the water on route to Cape Bauer.
On the way today we stopped at Iron Knob – the mountain with a heart of iron. Iron Knob is known as the birthplace of the Australian steel industry. The Information Centre has a fabulous little museum and provided a short film of the history of the area. Those staffing the office were very eager to share their wealth of information about the town. As early as 1840 it was noted that this area had deposits of iron by explorer Edward John Eyre. It is hard to believe that in the early days 70 ton was hand shovelled in a day. When BHP had leases here it was shipping the iron ore to Newcastle for processing. The current town was gazetted in 1915. Mining ceased here in 1999. Now they say “Iron Knob, what a hole! All 150 million tonnes of it.” That is because the mining left a huge hole as 150 million ton of iron ore was extracted from here.
The drive today was punctuated by the feeling of sameness around the sunburnt landscape whilst also recognising the uniqueness of the landscape in its subtle changes. As we travelled, the railway line was frequently in sight as was the water pipe line. What would happen to all the towns along the way if the Murray was no longer able to provide the water required so far from where it flows?
As we were preparing dinner we were initially ‘attacked’ by flies – little sticky ones and the March flies. My hubby commented that there were surprisingly no mozzies. He spoke too soon. All of a sudden we were swarmed by mozzies. My arm was black from them. We quickly retreated into the Oka to escape them and finish dinner. However, they managed to come with us. It took us a while to be rid of them.
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