Judy & Brian Tour Oz

Despite the attempts of the spell checker, it really is 'Hedland', not Headland as you might suspect. It was named after the first European to sail into the place in 1863. He named it Mangrove Harbour, it got the Port Hedland moniker after the town was surveyed and gazetted in 1893. It has been without doubt a very important port in this remote region of Australia and today claims the title for the port that exports the highest tonnage, with something like 30 plus million tons of iron ore going out every month. That is a whole lot of ore. To accommodate the boats they dredged a huge channel, installed huge wharfs and  even bigger machinery to load the 250,000+ ton boats that come here. The port itself is fed by private railway lines that come from 400 kms east of here. We did the BHP site tour and they alone have fifty trains. Each train has 4 engines, $20mill each, from USA, and 268 wagons that  come from China and carry 130 tons each. The wagons are interesting in that some ...

Hhhhh? What's that noise? Oh. It's 530am and we need to get ready and do the bolt asap. We have to drive the 50km or so back to Cooinda to catch the sunrise tour that leaves at 630. The rule is never drive in the dark. Well, for those of you who have never seen 530am o'clock, it is dark, very dark. Judy drove cautiously and carefully and it's just as well as the 'roo we did see was standing right on the road nibbling away at something and was not inclined to move. Then there was the snake, which we missed but it may have already gone to chat with the Great Serpent. The boat ride out onto the Billabong and out into the river and wetlands was really good, better than previous ones. I reckon that if they had Kakadu Bird Spotto cards we might well have ticked them all off! Here's a bit of a list: Jabiru (Black necked stork to you), wandering and plumed whistling ducks, magpie geese by the truckload, egrets; little, intermediate, great and cattle, White-bellied S...

Jabiru - Kakadu Up at 6am and went for a dip in the dark at Bitter Springs. Watched the sun come up and listened to the clamour of birdsong as they all woke up for the day. Went back to the van at 7, dug Judy out of bed and went for another swim, just floating through life not a care in the world, well nothing except that small matter of a 400+ km day ahead. Left Mataranka after 9, stopped at Katherine just for fuel, kept going, and going. Stopped at Mary River Roadhouse…. what for? There’s nothing there. Kept going. Stopped at Cooinda for a very late lunch, bought our park passes and booked a sunrise swamp tour. Pushed on the last 60km to Jabiru. Van park used to be called the Lakeside, now the Anbinik, which is aboriginal for something. They have just opened up in the new guise this week, so they're not really on top of  the new name thing yet. Anyhow, and despite the fact that we thought we had booked the Kakadu Lodge over the road, it's very nice I must say. It...

Ok folks, get yourself a cup of tea and a sticky bun, this might take a while. Day 2 - Morning Early start at the Normanton Railway Station for our ride on the historic Gulflander train. This is a classic railway:It was supposed to go between Normanton to Cloncurry to service the proposed mines, but change of government and discovery of gold in Croydon saw the line diverted after the first 15 miles to go to Croydon instead. It is run by Queensland Rail and, apart from a weekly mail run that goes all the way and takes passengers as well, it takes tourists on an demand basis on short rides out to the 20 mile, Critters Camp. It seems that some of the tour operators call up and charter the train, then it gets scheduled for the run and takes any other passengers that can be found. The train today comprises two old Rail Motors that were converted to carriages, towed by a 1950s rail motor designed and built in Ipswich in 1950. The rails are laid on steel sleepers just sitting on ...