A tour of Dampier and surrounds

After a sleep in, school work and shopping for supplies and lunch we headed off to explore the area west of Karratha. This encompassed a drive through the extensive salt mine operations of Dampier Salt Limited, which is quite clever as they use the sea water, pump it though extensive artificial lakes and utilising the local sun and wind conditions evaporate the water to extract the salt.
Dampier itself is a little haven set on the edge of an extensive array of islands – the standard pristine water etc etc means most locals here have a boat. We drove around appreciating the enormous amount of high density accommodation (obviously set up to house the myriad of workers who come through the place) combined with palm tree laced waterways.
Always on the horizon are the steal infrastructures associated with the Iron Ore port (another huge operation – with long trains and large boats with interconnecting conveyor belts) and the North West Shelf Gas operations. Everything around here is big, extensive and obviously expensive. Lots of company cars (mostly 4WD and utes) driving around but all the operations seem curiously devoid of people – which could just be because they dwarfed by the plants around them.
In search of a swimming beach we ended up at a fabulous spot which looked terrific (a beach made of shells surrounded by red rubble rock hills) but the water was clouded (a curious phenomenon in this part of the world) which Dad attributed to the ammonia plant nearby and thus even though it was deemed to be safe for swimming we did not go in.
We then had a wonderful adventure looking for aboriginal rock carvings. We discovered a hidden valley amongst the rubble hills which had a freshwater stream trickling through it. This place contains old Middens and the rocks have had the outer layer scrapped off to portray images in the traditional native paintings fashion. We gained an appreciation of why this place had been used for thousands of years for shelter and refreshment. Feeling very honored to have experienced there we left to return to the Park for drinks with Dave, Lisa and family.