Off to See the Wizard - Day Trip to Marble Bar

On Saturday our Plan A was to have a day trip to Karratha, with our friends playing tour guide. However, sadly, there was a fatal traffic accident just our of Port Hedland that had closed the highway.  We didn’t know how long it would be closed so progressed to Plan B.  As it turned out, the road didn’t open until after lunch, so we made a good decision.

Instead, we took a day trip to Marble Bar.  Marble Bar is credited with the title of “Australia’s Hottest Town”.  In the 1920s they recorded 160 consecutive days over 38.7 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit), a record that remains unbroken.  It is also a rather dry town.

There are loads of road trains on the road.

It is a distance of about 250kms, over which the landscape changes several times.  There were some lovely hills in the distance.

There were quite a few that looked like they had chocolate icing on top.

The weather was grey, with some rain forecast and we had a few spots on our way out.  Just as we arrived it started to rain lightly.

This has been a mining town since the 1890s, when they discovered gold.  It was named after a mineral deposit which was thought to be marble, but is actually jasper.  The old government buildings that housed the police, mining department and court house are rather lovely. The museum is now housed in this end section.  By the time we came out the rain had set in.

There are a couple of pretty areas out of town, one being Chinaman’s Pool. You can see the jasper on the other side of the pool.

We were lucky enough to see both a pelican and some black swans on it.

The next spot we visited was the Comet Gold Mine museum. The mine was founded in the 1930s and is still operating on a small scale.  The museum is rather run down, but new managers took over the previous week and hope to turn it around and even open a cafe.  I hope they do well.

By then it was lunch time, so we headed to the pub, the “Ironclad Hotel”.  It is rather quirky inside, as are most outback pubs, complete with the regulars holding up the bar.

So much for the hot dry Marble Bar.  They ended up receiving 20mm of rain in this event.  Just as well we took our cardigans.

It was a bit disappointing that the weather was wet, as we didn’t see as much as we would have liked, but who gets to see Marble Bar in these weather conditions.

From there, we just returned home to Port Headland.  Can you imagine overtaking a 60 metre long road train in the wet, with all of those tyres throwing up water spray?  It was terrifying.  I’m glad we weren’t doing the driving.

I did buy a souvenir.  I’ve wanted a thermometer in the van, so a magnetic one from the hottest town in Australia was rather appropriate.  As Mick said, “Small things amuse small minds”.  I don’t care, I’m happy.

The highlight of the day for Mick was overtaking in the wet and for me it was the thermometer.