Day 102 - Dampier, Karratha and Burrup Peninsula

Today started - and finished - overcast.  What a perfect day to head off down to Karratha and its surrounds.

Dampier was first.  It is a town built around Rio Tinto's salt and iron ore.  So we saw the huge area of tidal flats given over to salt production.  Currently Rio Tinto produces 4.2million tonnes per annum at Dampier - very impressive.

170714 Dampier Salt stockpile

170714 Dampier's salt flats - take 1

170714 Dampier's salt flats - take 2

170714 Dampier's salt flats - take 3 and there was more

The Dampier harbour area has two major iron ore export areas, one on the western side of East Intercourse Island and another further down the harbour, at Hampton Harbour (?)  We also stumbled across the famous "Red Dog' statue, the dog having been "immortalised" in the movie "Red Dog".

170714 Dampier Harbour with East Intercourse Island on the LHS.
Can't see the iron ore pile

170714 Rio Tinto's ore processing and loading at Hampton Harbour

170714 The "Red Dog" statue at Dampier

Next we moved up the Burrup Peninsula to Woodside's North West Shelf Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) Project.  This is the site of their Karratha on shore LNG processing facility and it is big and world class.  14.5mta of LNG, plus heaps of LPG, oil and condensate.  It is where their four platforms (Goodwin A, North Rankin A & B and Angel) send their gas production to shore for processing into LNG.  Oil from the Cossack, Wanea, Lambert and Hermes fields are processed, stored and shipped from its FPSO Okha.  We were just able to see one LNG ship in port.

170714 First glimpse of Woodside's NWS LNG plant

170714 An LNG ship in port

170714 The LNG plant - a picture of a picture

170714 The LNG plant - well some of it anyway

We got a glimpse of the Yara Pilbara ammonia plant.  Ammonia is made from natural gas and there is plenty of that around here.

170714 The Yara Pilbara ammonia plant

The Burrup Peninsula is an interesting place, with piles of red coloured, angular rocks, forming hills and filling valleys.  The only colour contrast is the spinifex grass which holds on grimly to any spot where there might be soil.  Once again this is a unique place and beautiful in its own right.

170714 Typical Burrup Peninsula countryside

170714 More Burrup Peninsula countryside

There were also some unusual decorations on the roundabouts in Karratha.

170714 Roundabout decorations at Karratha

We saw some interesting humour on the salt flats on the side of the road.  The flats of course are pure white, so one wouldn't be surprised, would one, to see a snowman and a penguin sitting in the middle of the salt, or a sign saying "Anchovy Flats" or the picture of a man's face with his tongue lolling out as if to say "I'm dying of thirst".  Where do they get these ideas?  Sorry, we were moving quickly in traffic so could not take any photographs.  The humour brightened up what was otherwise a dull day, weather wise, but - it did not rain.