Point Samson

The journey continues. This time down through Roebourne on to where we based ourselves for the next few days, and that is Point Samson.

We stayed at 'The Cove' an nice new caravan park right on the beach, which is only 5 years old, so all the facilities were first class.

While we were based at Point Samson we visited the towns of Roebourne, Cossack and Wickham. We also booked the Port to Port tour out of the Roebourne Visitor Centre, to do in a day or so.

Point Samson - is an ideal place from which to explore the Central Pilbara Coast. Beautiful sandy beaches sheltered by rock outcrops forming many secluded coves, fascinating walking trails through unspoiled coastal terrain, and supposedly good fishing.



Laurie finally caught a fish!!!!



Honeymoon Cove beach



Jeff at one of the lookouts

The Cove Holiday Village, where we were camped, is at the heart of Point Samson, at the eastern tip of the Dampier Archipelago. Point Samson is famous for it's fish and chips and we only had to walk 100 metres to get them. The local, and only pub, is also situated 100 metres from our camp and the food there is delicious.



Local pub at Point Samson

Roebourne - is the oldest town on the North West coast of WA. It was established in 1866, and a walk around reveals many restored historic buildings and an insight into earlier times. The Visitor Centre and Museum is housed in the old Roebourne Gaol, which reveals a sad part of our history when the white settlers treated the local aborigines as possessions/slaves.

Cossack - originally a pearling town but now a ghost town with all the buildings that are left,  now being classified by the National Trust.  Cossack was home to the North West's first pearling industry,
but due to the over fishing of the Cossack pearling grounds the pearling fleet moved further north to later become established in Broome.



Original Homestead - one of the few buildings still standing



From the lookout at Cossack

Wickham - mining giant Rio Tinto is spending more than $300 million to expand and renew the town of Wickham as part of it's effort to significantly raise the iron ore production in the Pilbara region.



New housing being built at Wickham

With the huge amount of building going on, Wickham will house the workers needed for Rio Tinto to reach its goal if 183 million metric tonnes in export capacity from Cape Lambert in 2015 from around 80 million tonnes currently.



The outdoor theatre at Wickham

Port to Port tour - starting from the Roebourne Visitor Centre, this tour included heritage buildings significant to Roebourne's rich history, a visit to Rio Tinto's Cape Lambert iron ore ship loading facilities and a visit to Cossack.  Long pants, long sleeves, enclosed shoes and protective glasses were required.

The highlight of this tour was the Rio Tinto plant. We were allowed entry to the Cape Lambert Port B Project, it is one of the largest resource projects ever undertaken in Australia. 

Here we were able to see how the iron ore is processed, from arriving in the trains, the fantastic machinery that empty the train cars, the screening and filtering, the reclaiming process and finally the huge conveyors that load it onto the ships at the end of the 3km long wharf.