First impressions are that Port Hedland is our distopian future. Everything is affected by the red dust. On the drive into the town there is a whole area of piles of rusted metal, tidal pools, tailings pools and a confusing road system. Houses here are covered in the dust, with everything ending up looking rust coloured.

We are close to the sea, but even the shore looked shabby at low tide. This morning we have driven into the town centre so that Stephen can go to the visitor centre and museum and I can visit the cafes. The Dome cafe has a modern section and a large section of smaller rooms in an old colonial style house. The ocean from here looks much prettier than last night near our campsite, and I can see a clean sandy beach out of the window.

When we were at the ATRA I put out some towels on the airer and linked it to the van via a couple of occy straps. When we returned to the van ants were using the occy straps as bridges to the van. Our first stop yesterday in Port Hedland was a Woolies where we picked up some Ant Rid. There are STILL ants in the van. They seem to wait until they think we are not around before coming out. They are easy to eliminate individually as they move in straight lines, but we would really like to be rid of all of them. I think we may have to empty out the van and also check underneath to find them all. Anyway, as we left the van this morning we put out some more ant rid.

Tonight we are joining the throng to see the Stairway to the Moon. There is a Pizza van and various other stalls. We came here at about 2.00pm and didn’t move as we figured that parking would get quite tight. We have seen it before, a long time ago when we drove up here in the old blue Subaru sedan.