June 14th: left Eighty-Mile Beach Van Park and travelled along Northern Highway, stopping at Pardoo Roadhouse, where I was the only customer not buying booze, instead buying a juice mixture.The vegetation along the road gradually flattened out with a few natural mounds and many whistling and black kites. Burned areas continued. Our CB radio worked well as we could communicate with vehicles behind us to let them know that we would slow down if they wanted to pass, and a HiLux driver let us know that our caravan door was partly open.

We arrived in Port Hedland, with road trains and goods trains evident plus huge piles of salt. Port Hedland has a population of about 15,000 but it very spread out, with such features as an overflow town caravan park full of caravans in a dusty paddock near the Turf club. We settled into the Discovery Van Park at the northern end of town backing onto Pretty Pool Creek and then went for an orientation drive around Port Headland, ending with a shop at Woolworths. We unpacked the shopping and went back to the Hedland Hotel for a delicious local fish meal for dinner , then an early night.

Pretty creek

Beautiful white trunked gum trees along the main drag