Monday 21 July 2014

Marble Bar WA

Marble Bar is situated 203 ks south east of Pt. Hedland and is considered Australia's hottest town with temperatures climbing above 38 degrees for days on end.
To get there is to travel through wonderful countryside with large hills and gorges, driving through these gorges are a delight of small winding roads but no hilly areas and shared with road trains going in and out with iron ore to Pt. Hedland.
The drivers of the road trains are a very courteous lot and do a great job. For this road all the way in from the main road just north of Pt. Hedland we turn to UHF 8 so we can keep up with the action on the road. The road trains will say when they are about to enter the gorge so other drivers are aware they are nearby. They will also have a chat with the nomads on the road, a very friendly group.
We stayed at Stan Streckfuss overnight stop on the way in and back out again. The only stop safely set up for campers with a lovely river view, toilets and a dump point, plus undercover tables. While there we had unseasonal rain which left a lot of the grounds very slushy and not driveable without 4WD.
Driving into Marble Bar on the Saturday for a day of sightseeing was an experience. Firstly knowing we needed to fill up with Diesel while in there to be sure of getting back to Pt. Hedland, we stopped at the first service station which looked like it hadn't been used in years. It was closed with a Run out of Power sign on the door. We found out later he had been open earlier in the day and supplied a bit of diesel to some desperate drivers.
So we drove on the next one which was the Marble Bar Roadhouse. Guess what? Out of Diesel. The truck had got bogged two days before on one of the roads leading in and they were still waiting on it to arrive.
After taking a few photos we drove out to the Marble Bar site of Rocks, water and hills for more photos. Being of Red Jasper and not Marble as is well known, we were able to take some really nice photos before heading back into town, where we sat in our vans for an hour catching up on internet before using the dump point and filling water containers.
Back to Stan Streckfuss overnight stop for another couple of nights stay, hard work this travelling. Have to rest for two days before moving on. Really, there wasn't much point of going into Pt. Hedland on a Sunday as we had a bit to do on the Monday.
We were fairly confident we would make it back on the remaining diesel we had left in out tanks.
We did, only just.


























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