Point Samson - Day 31

Fletcher : Today was a great day, we saw the Red Dog statue and to the town that Red Dog was filmed.  I collected an old plate off a dump truck that worked at a mine, dad said I found a piece of history.   I find everything these days, I even found money under where we saw a big diesel engine.  My dads friend came over.  We saw the pub that red dog was at.

Mackenzie :  Today we got up and me and Fletcher went to the TV room and watched ABC3.  After that we went to where Red dogs statue is and went to the pub where the film was made, it was cool.  Then my dad's friend came over, he works at my dad's work.

We headed to Dampier today where they have the statue of Red Dog.  Before we left this seemed to be the only thing the kids were interested in seeing so there was a bit of pressure to make sure we got to it.  The statue they have erected is at the information Bay and its a gorgeous statue, we all had a photo with him.  Dampier is a beautiful town, the grass is green & the ocean is turquoise blue.  Everywhere we have been in the west it seems there are 3 constants - the red dirt, the green grass & beautiful blue sea.  Its such a contrast, a professional photographers heaven I'd say.  I also never really understood the saying "that the desert meets the sea", but it is amazing to see the desert landscape going right up to the ocean in places.  We went to the pub where Red Dog was filmed, it had a massive beer garden that has nightly & weekend specials like $20 all you can eat BBQ on a sunday, free sausage sizzle with every drink on another night.  Apparently you cant move in the place on a weekend.  We moved onto Karratha which is the shopping & business hub of the Pilbara.  We shopped at coles which all the prices were comparative to what we pay, but a trip to Mcdonalds saw our normal meal of around $25 cost $39, how crazy the prices are here because of the mining.  We were pretty cross that we had wasted so much money, I had wanted the kids to try something from a local but they were set on Maccas as their treat so what can you do?  Funny to see the stickers on the shopping centre windows, you know like a skateboard with a cross through it, smoking with a cross through it etc, well I knew I was in for a treat when the first picture I saw was bare feet with a cross through it, who shops in bare feet?  Well the lady I saw being asked to leave does, I say lady but the words she was saying weren't very ladylike.  It was a good little shopping centre with kmart & target and a heap of specialty stores, we had heaps to do so we didn't get to have alook.  The post office was our next stop and it was a funny set up, you went into the post office to get your envelopes and parcel packs, and the counters to write on them were actually back outside, then you go back in and just leave your parcel on a set of scales at any counter and they grab them for you.  It was a bit strange but pretty efficient and lovely postal workers there.  We also went to the Gas plant - north west shelf, wow it was amazing.  Built in the early 80's it is awesome to see,  Dan has always had a bit of a fascination with it so he was really pleased to be there in the flesh.  We could see the gas flare fire burning for absolute miles when we were heading into Point Samson last night, so it was amazing to be up close and see just how massive the fire was.  It is one of the worlds largest producers of gas, it alone accounts for 40% of Australia's total oil & gas production and is a $27 billion production system including their off shore facilities.  I am blown away by what our country has to offer and what we have seen so far - gold, gas, oil, iron ore & salt.  We headed back to the park and booked an extra night and as Dan was leaving the office his mate from work was walking in.  He is on leave for a few months and decided last Wednesday to head off and has taken 6 days to get to here.  He set up camp next to us, well set up car as he is living out of his car, got a bed set up and all the essentials on board.  It was so lovely to finally meet Mark who I had heard so much about over the years, such a nice guy, it was lovely to have dinner, drinks and talk late into the night.  It was a short catch up as he is on a mission and had places to go & people to see.  It was great for Dan to see a familiar face and get to be a bloke for a while and have a break from listening to Pokémon talk and me! I'm a pleasure to live with so I'm cant name any reasons he would need a break from me though!!  It was another warm evening but a bit of a breeze so we sat outside for the night and the kids got the chance to play with new friends in the park and tv room until way after they normally would so they were rapt.  The W.A. kids are on holidays now and the kids next to us are here for a week, they live in Karratha which is only 59km down the road, they couldn't believe how far we had come for a holiday.

                                                 Look how big these dump trucks are

                                                  one of the gas flares at North West Shelf

                                                                       Mark & Dan

 This train engine pulled the carriages the queen was in when she was here in the 50's

                                                             The colors of the Pilbara