Port Hedland Australia

Port Hedland Australia

Port Hedland is another port city in the state of Western Australia. Its population is about 14,000. Again, the welcoming committee of Port Hedland, also greeted all us passengers with a ‘fan’ as we ventured from the ship. We actually did use it, so it was appreciated. A pretty small town indeed. We are still in the Indian Ocean. The temperatures are warm for sure. There is very little difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures. When we go to bed at night its about 84 degrees, and when we get up in the mornings the temperature is 82 or 84 degrees. (the humidity is almost that too). So it feels hotter. Our face and skin is always sticky and shiny.

Port Hedland is on Australia’s Northwest corner. It is one of the largest and busiest harbors with huge cargo ships that transport hundreds of millions of tons of  iron ore to lots of distant places. Ships are coming and going from dusk to dawn daily. We watched a few cargo ships get loaded with iron ore while our ship was in this port. Its not a pretty town AT ALL.

This is Port Hedland city center

 The BHP Billiton plant is here in this town.  BHP is one of the biggest producers of ‘Iron Ore’ .  Iron Ore is the principal ingredient needed to make steel. So  you know, Iron Ore is a major component in many modern office towers, motor vehicles, washing machines, refrigerators, ovens, and a lot of other things.

A picture of a portion of the BHP Iron Ore plant

The majority of the iron ore shipped from Port Hedland goes to China. The actual mines are located a couple hundred miles away.The rail cars bring the iron ore to Hedland to be loaded onto ships. The processing plant doesn’t have a lot of actual employees, because most of their operations are run by computers in Perth! So we didn't see very many humans on our tour. We were surprised they could possibly automate these huge pieces of equipment from a computer so far away. Welcome to technology!

We were told that there are like 100 miles of conveyor belts run throughout this plant, they carry iron ore throughout the plant and they utilize both sides of the belt for longer wear.

Hard to see it, but the  moving conveyor belt is loaded with iron ore.

They have lots of trains, train engines, ore cars, and lots of rail lines.

Two sets of empty train cars on the way back to the mines to be loaded. 

In the back lots, away from the plant itself is the worn out train wheel graveyard.The train wheels wear out from many many miles on the rails.

There is also many spools of new replacement conveyor belt, about a million dollars worth.

Spools of new conveyor belts

 Different piles of different sized chunks of  iron ore separated according to size. There is a large pile of sea salt on the premises, which another company gets and processes from the ocean.

Automatic sprinklers water the soil and piles of iron ore regularly to keep the dust down. Everywhere you look, its brown. Lots of shades of brown here.

This picture taken from the top deck of our cruise ship basically shows the BHP plant at the very top, even tho a little far away, and... to the right is where the ships are loaded and sent to mostly China. (you can also the salt pile) The rest of the town would be to the left of this. Its a small town.



This picture shows 3 ships being loaded across the water with iron ore. the one in the middle you can see the reddish portion of the ship at the bottom, that is out of the water?...that one is empty, about to be loaded., The other two are low in the water because they ARE loaded.


Near town center the locals, some aboriginals, set up 'markets' to sell their crafts to cruise passengers. A cruise ship comes to this town once a month, so its a BIG deal when one is in town.

 Our tour guide mentioned that the color of a rainbow in Port Hedland is: Dark brown, brown, light brown, rust brown, and tan. He said it never rains there, if they should get .005 inches of rain, its a downpour.

                                 Just some ART in the park, Not sure what it actually signifies.