Find a Water Tank!

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Trevor and Chrissie’s House, 31 Mosher Way, Karratha 

Spot the Tasmanian tiger!

After some work this morning (2 hour Woolworths Wellbeing Advisory Council meeting that I couldn’t get out of), we left Point Samson and travelled to Karratha - just an hour up the road. Did a bit of shopping and had lunch, then headed to Trevor and Chrissie’s house. They live up here for the winter and then in Perth / peaceful bay for the summer. 

They took us on a great local tour of Karratha and Dampier. Compared to most of the towns we’ve visited lately, Karratha is booming. Lots of shops, hundreds of work camps for mine/ gas workers, lovely green sporting ovals, and many new shiny buildings.

Red Earth cultural centre, Karratha 

Trevor kept taking us up these random 4wd tracks that led to the top of hills with stunning views. I asked him how he found these tracks. His tip: look for the water tanks. As he explained, they always have access to them and are usually located in high places. Brilliant thinking!

Trevor and Chrissie 

Fabulous views - all to ourselves!

The highlight for me was the stunning rock formations - they look like giant pieces of gravel that someone has picked up and poured in a random pile. But in fact they are fully natural- there are three types or rocks that heat and cool at different temperatures, which causes them to look the way they do. 

The area we went to, the Burrup peninsular, has loads of ancient indigenous rock art engravings, depicting kangaroos, spirit beings, spears, and even a Tasmanian tiger. There are over 10,000 of these petroglyphs, some estimated to be over 40000 years old. Just this year the area was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Trevor’s theory is that when the parents got fed up with the kids they would send them off to the rocks and tell them to do some drawing! :-) 

Just love these rocks! 

 
So much art!

Karratha has 2 gas plants, iron ore mines and ports, a salt mine, and lots of suppliers to all of these. This explains why it is thriving as a town. But as you might expect, all this industry can cause issues with the community. Currently there is a dispute as to whether the gas emitted from the plants is damaging the petroglyphs. 

Salt is a big industry here because of two key things- 1) salt from the sea and 2) endless sunshine to evaporate the water.

Dampier is a large port, mostly for exporting iron ore. And home of Red Dog! (Famous dog in movie)

Red dog 

A beach known as Paradise. Tide out when we were there
These are flats that sold for $700k a few years back that Trevor wishes he had bought. You can’t tell from the photo but that have stunning views!

It was great to get the local perspective on a place! As an added bonus, Chrissie loves wildflowers just as much as I do :-) 






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