So we were away from the great Metropolis of Port Hedland (that is spelled right), along the road that links Port and South Hedland, over the railway bridge, past the huge piles of salt, I notice all them cooks on the telly tell you to use sea salt, well here are huge stockpiles of it with trucks and dozers all over the place, must be the diesel that is good for you, I digress, past the salt pans, to the roundabout with the legend, left for Broome and Marble bar, straight on for South Hedland. We veered left up past the airport, and of course we had to stop at Dickson’s caravan park for iced coffee and such, it will be the last shop we see for a few weeks.
Filled with such luxuries as mars bars and iced coffee we set off again towards the Taba Taba turn off, my passenger was a Pommy bloke called Bob, who had come from Luton or somewhere like that, and had been here a few years and lived in Marble Bar for sometime running the roadhouse and doing some tours, so he knew what he was getting into. After about forty kilometers (twenty five miles) the mesas around Taba Taba hove into view and we turned right at the junction, past Strelley station, which I had heard had been taken over by an Aboriginal group, but looked deserted to me, a few old cars and trucks scattered about and that was it. We carried on past Red Rock Creek, the West and East Strelley creeks and another river called Carlindi creek, over the Shaw river and stopped at the side of the road where a dirt road went off to the right, this I was told was my road but I was carrying on to Bamboo Creek to be processed, inducted and issued with safety equipment, and then would return and meet a bloke at that said road junction.
The other two new starters were given their Dongas and we all went round to the mess and had a feed and a well needed cup of tea, the Mine Manager came and got us after a while and we were processed, I then filled the wagon up with fuel, my new water bottle up with iced water and loaded the supplies for the bloke at the turnoff into the back of the Toyota, and set off back to there, out to the bitumen, turned right and after about a hundred K’s saw the man at the turn off, we introduced each other, shook hands and set off the forty K’s to Normay camp. Once there we transferred the supplies to his vehicle, he showed me where to sleep and we did a quick tour of the camp and he explained my duties to me and he was off.
There I was, all on my own, with a camp at my disposal, I checked the fridges and food stores out and thought I was in Paradise.