Again we woke to a fine and windy day. We had been fortunate that the wind direction had spared us from being covered by dust from the area where we were stopped.
We departed at 8:15am and headed towards Karratha. As we left Port Hedland, the nature of the town was reconfirmed with more railway lines being passed and several more trains arriving full of iron ore.
The wind impacted the first 30 or so kilometres with the car having to be driven in 4th gear to counteract the effect of the wind. Our consumption was a lot higher than expected but still was not as bad as the earlier part of our journey when we travelled between Broken Hill and Peterborough.
As was the case yesterday, the wind and road eventually changed direction and we benefited from a partial tail wind. Overall our fuel consumption was high but not the worst experienced on this trip.
We stopped at Whim Creek for morning tea and enjoyed “real” coffee and a delicious vanilla slice. Unfortunately friends travelling behind us failed to hear our radio calls and continued on. We also drove in rain for part of the trip.
We managed to capture a near miss on our dash camera just after passing Roebourne when a 4wd overtook us on a left hand bend and almost hit and on-coming vehicle. During this trip we have noticed a large number of drivers who will pass under any conditions whilst ignoring the lines marked in the middle of the road.
After setting up in our caravan park, we took the car and headed to Dampier to look at the port and also the North West Shelf gas and oil plant.
After returning to the caravan park, we had an early tea and then enjoyed a very a competitive game of “Sequence” with our friends.