Marble Bar finale

Our stay in marble Bar has been restorative and something of a revelation. This hottest town in the country (in 1927 the temperature remained above 38degC for 167 days), that in our mind's eye would be a barren hell hole, the sort of place Luke Skywalker would feel at homwe in, revealed itself as a true oasis nestled in charming fashion amongst a range of low hills.

White Gums and Wattles and Melaleuca line the nearby creeks and no shortage of water it seems, is available to keep lawns green here and there.

There are several gorges and water holes to find, the bar itself (a band of jasper that resembles marble metamorphosed with dark and light and red banding). It is a place where many of the locals arrived not so long ago and just decided to stay. For two pins I reckon Helen would too - she has talked to many of them and heard some stories and bonded with one of the town's older women who grew up on the station mentioned. It's also a town undergoing change through the pressures of mining - Gina Reinhardt has leased some of the country around, there  is lots of exploratory prospecting, and the town itself is underpinned by the owner of one of the grazing properties nearby, who has bought most of the business opportunities (caravan park, pub, post office etc).

As I write the smart daughter is returning to her property in her red helicopter. She married the pub owner and they have a baby. She runs a successful with beef cattle export business and is rumoured to be buying her father out. There is surely a novel in it.

We keep extending our stay day by day because it is such an interesting place. We visited the old Comet Gold Mine with its 75m stack and

chatted with the Dutch overseer, who came to look after the mine museum (it closed in 1995) for a friend for three weeks. He has been there day and night for three years and the friend never returned.

Carrying on down the road another 15 kms we arrived at Glen Herring, a fine gorge with a series of rock pools. The rock formations are extraordinarily beautiful.

We were on our own and we found a great sense of peace there, with Spinifex pigeons, blue winged kookaburra, painted finches. Helen couldn't resist a swim of course. Only the coating of cow shit which cloaked much of the bed in the upper reaches sounded a negative note. Such a price was paid by the aborigines. It epitomises what we are doing to our environment everywhere.

When at the Comet Mine we met a Perth couple and shared information as you do, and we met up for a couple of reds last evening. By the end of play we had changed our whole return itinerary, reverting to the anti-clockwise journey back through WA and across the Nullabor. This was Plan A before we left home but neither of us could get excited about returning through Queensland. The opportunities to catch up with old and new travel chums trump the over familiar Kidman Highway through NSW. We had thought we would avoid a prolonged cold drive west to east at a high latitude, but it now feels like the best thing to do. It's like playing the joker, that surprises and changes the game in an instant.

Yesterday's treat was a drive out to Coppins Gap. Once again we were the only people there - what do all the other tourists do? Stunningly beautiful again, look at this rock!

We took a different track back, only possible with the GPS as it was unmapped on paper and unsigned. It was lovely, past pinnacles, through dry creeks and riverbeds, one with old stone causeway remains, and deserted mines like Moolyella tin mine with mounds of tailings and ponds. This was apparently once the road to Broome!

Sadly we pack up this morning and head out on the dirt again via a demolished town called Shay Gap to come out on the coast and camp at Cape Keraudren, a state reserve. Hopefully no midges!

PS Do we have any followers (apart from our faithful friend Etch)? We would love some comments to know if this hard work is worth it!

Marble Bar 22-26 June

We had a gentle 150km run southeast to Marble Bar against the first head winds we have had on the trip. WA is famous for them and it really helps if you are going around Australia in the right direction otherwise the diesel bill can be awful. The Bar is like a tiny (120 people, one pub) oasis with the first real lawn in the caravan park and shady trees. We had a message from a Newham friend for the Ironclad pub’s owner, duly delivered over the bar in between locals bellowing at the footy on the TV. The publican married the cattle-exporting daughter of local Yarrie Station owner, who has helped keep the town function by buying the caravan park and other facilities.

As Marble Bar is the official centre of the Pilbara Goldfield, a Wardens court is held regularly; Ian chatted to the officer responsible for all mining lease applications. The 1936 Comet Mine is closed but has a museum. Marble Bar has some lovely stone heritage Government buildings built in 1895 and still used as such.

Helen of course sketched out the range of new challenges starting with a round trip to visit Carrawine Gorge, which we should have arrived at over a week ago! Marble Bar has much to recommend it; there is much to do. The Carrawine Gorge trip had us on the road at 8:15am for a 135km run to the Gorge, on the blacktop, was a long but enjoyable day.  

We had a suspicion the Gorge might be a let down which it was, and it wasn’t. If you were passing by, yes, but a special long trip, no. It is impressive, being on the Oakover River with a massive perhaps 100metre high cliff face across from a broad deep gravel river bed that is hard to drive through. Lots of people doing things like pulling down the dead trees with long ropes and chain saws echoing off the cliff face opposite. Not the best karma. We had a quick sandwich and departed. A bonus was a small sign directing us off the track to a mound of glaciated rock, beautifully polished and striated.

Hells Bells had a list of other destinations lined up further down the track (derived from conversation with a Port Hedland oldtimer cleaning at the caravan park there) so off we went to find solitude at the Eel Pool thirty kilometres on.

It was delightful. A ribbon pool in the bed of the Oakover river that runs for about a kilometre. Water crystal clear and full of native fish; bird life and peace and quiet. Two more destinations were attempted but our hoped-for tracks turned out to be dozer tracks to exploration sites. They are everywhere and let no one be in any doubt about the determination to dig up, scrape off or burrow in to any opportunity in WA. There is big money being spent and some lost out here, and the common cry we hear is that it is all keeping Australia afloat and anything is justified for the elusive dollar.

Peel the top layer

When the tour guide at the Mt Whaleback mine back in Newman pointed to a lovely range of hills beyond the big hole in the ground, and told us it would not be there in ten years, we politely zipped our lip. What is clear is that the pace is picking up and there are rumours of major finds being kept quiet. Interesting times. Anyway, we got so far down the road yesterday we decided to keep going and return to Marble Bar using roads we had planned to drive in the opposite direction, before the Port Headland diversion. Things are working out better than planned because we have seen two towns we wouldn’t have, and had great fun in both (notwithstanding the tyre changes and gas jet issues). I can’t imagine driving over 500 kms in Victoria to do what we did, but it was all worthwhile, the landscape being so beautiful and different from the home country.

Yesterday Sunday 24^th we drove south to Corruna Downs airstrip, 35 kms away.

On the runway

In WW2 it was a secret airstrip from where Liberator bombers flew to PNG and Borneo to harass the Japanese. There were many successful sorties with relatively few losses and the enemy were apparently well aware that there was a base somewhere in the Pilbara but they tried and failed to find it. Two runways, about 20 dispersal bays arranged across perhaps 100 hectares, with the remains of a barracks, an army support base, gun pits and so on.

Given that summer temperatures here regularly top 50degC conditions must have been extreme; and no one knew about it (in theory I suppose) so there would have been no week end R & R at the Marble Bar pub!

Marble Bar keeps offering more and we keep extending our stay, meeting interesting people and foraying out to see more sights. The Marble Bar itself is a colourfully striped bar of Jasper rock above a lovely pool, barring the Coongan River. Nearby is Chinaman’s pool and stretch of river where we spent a happy hour or so on the grassy verge bird watching – Great and Little Pied Cormorants, White Faced Heron,  flocks of Nankeen Night Herons and Corellas, Azure Kingfisher, ducks…..
The Pioneer’s Cemetery had many unmarked graves and the usual poignant headstones for babies and children, and this lost bushman.

However in town is a memorial to all the unmarked and other lonely graves that have been tracked – extraordinary tales on many plaques.

Despite its record as the hottest town in Australia, Marble Bar is currently delightfully mid 20s, and cool enough for sweaters at night. We love it and keep forking our $22 for another night. The Pied butcher birds sing beautifully every morning. Still to go are a couple more gorges!