Hitting the road again... and again... and again...
Just got back from Wakathuni - around 800kms southeast of Port Hedland. I've travelled close to 2000kms in just under two days. I'm off to Exxmouth this weekend (on the coast, about 1500kms south east of Port Hedland), followed by an office-wide camp fest outside Roebourne (somewhere between Exxmouth and Port Hedland). No showers after tomorrow for a week. At least we've got some guitars and plenty of clean underwear. In the mean time enjoy some photos...
Welcome to Wakathuni. Watch out for over-protective dogs.
Wakathuni has been hit hard by alcohol and marajuana. Community members are willing to try anything to have even one dry night.
This image says it all. A trailer filled to the kilter with empty beer cans. Next to it, a car windscreen lies smashed, the victim of yet another argument between family members. I won't go into the details here.
Father and son.
Hmmm... I don't think anyone's coming to take me back to Hedland.
Need a lift brother?
A stereotypical piece of road.
posted by Iqbal Khaldun @ 2:45 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Haha, but what about the militant beard and spectacles??? It can get difficult wearing the specatles underneath the balaclava.
Actually I did notice the layers in the rock. I hear this entire area would've been under water many thousands (millions?) of years ago. The tips of the hills/mountains are etched with what look like the scars of ancient waves. Maybe firstashore could shed some light on it?
Just a quick note on the geology of the Pilbara. :)
Those layers you can see in the extreme right of the picture are, as Vasco said, known as Bruno's Band and The Twins (or the Tram Tracks). They are layers of hard siltstone that are more resistant to weathering than the surrounding rocks, which is why they make such a prominent scar on the ridgeline. All the rocks did originally cover the entire Pilbara, but now the valleys have been gouged out by erosion, which is why you see the bands running along the edge of the hills and mountains.
The thing about Bruno's Band is that it is visible all over the Pilbara, and so immediately obvious from such a long way away, that it enabled the first geologist to map the Pilbara (named Bruno, naturally) to identify where he was in the geological sequence from aircraft, particularly with the Twins just below. In addition, if he saw the Twins ABOVE Bruno's Band, he would know that the sequence had been tipped upside down.
And yeah, all the Pilbara iron rocks were formed underwater, not millions but BILLIONS of years ago.
The oldest rocks in the world are found in the Pilbara, about 3.5 billion years old, and they are basement granites. There are only a few other places in the world where these original crust rocks are still around. On top of this, iron and quartz began to precipitate out of the sea on a truly massive scale, and formed the alternating layers called Banded Iron Formation or BIF. That of course is why the miners are there today. This was about 1.7 billion years ago if I remember correctly.
Many hundreds of millions of years later the area got pushed up and became dry land. You can think of it like a really old slab of rock trapped in a sea of younger rock that makes up the rest of WA.
-Vasco's Geologist :)
what's to do there, apart from um. drinking?
Thanks dude, pretty amazing stuff to contemplate. I really have problems trying to conceptualise billions of years. Such an amazing universe we live in. I did a breathtaking hike through a gorge at Exmouth on the weekend (um, trying to remember the name... no luck). The gorge was littered with ancient reefs. This is like several kilometres from the coast. I even found an old shell at the top of one of the highest peaks.
So how long were you in the Pilbara for? Such a meat and beer fest over here. Although I'm not particularlu solidly built, I've developed a little lump on my torso. I think I'm turning into a giant barbecue sausage!
Yo Mel. Yeah that's pretty much it. The 'punishment' people take up here is pretty amazing. So far I've resisted piss-head status, but I can't promise anything.
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