More of Marble Bar

  23/07/2011
    Met an interesting bloke in the pub last night, a gold prospector and he showed us his nugget! A lump of gold no bigger than the end of a thumb but heavy and weighing about 4.6oz. He makes a living by selling off the big lumps he finds and turns the smaller stuff into jewellery. Unfortunately we didn’t  have the odd couple of thousand bucks to buy anything and he didn’t do plastic. We also met the landlord and landlady of the pub in Cooktown Queensland where we watched the Hog Hunt weigh in, in  Oct 2009.  I happened to wearing my Hog Hunt tee shirt last night  which started the conversation.  They are staying in the same park as us in Marble Bar. It’s a small world……….Cooktown is just under 5,000K away on the other side of Australia! We get free beer if we make this years Hog Hunt.
  Today we have been boning up on our Australian birds  at a lovely spot called Chinamans Pool, just down river from Marble Bar pool. It’s very green here, lots of good grass  consequently there are cattle grazing and drinking from the pool which doesn’t make for a good swimming pool.
  Cooled off later at the pub, tho it doesn’t seem as hot as the last couple of days, it has been 29 to 30, but we reckon it’s collapsed to 26.5.

  24/07/2011
   Yesterdays drop in temperature must have been a fault with the thermometer because this town is living up to it’s reputation of being the hottest town in Australia, it’s sweltering!
  We went to look at the Pioneers cemetery, but most of the older graves are just numbered. We reckon the information of who is interred must be held in the town hall.  The majority of miners and prospectors  in the late 1800’s would have been itinerants with no dependants to tend their grave.  It must have been a case of   dig a hole in the rock, chuck them in, and write their age, name and how they died down in the book.
  Later we went back to Chinamans pool, then Marble Bar pool to take another couple of photos of this amazingly colourful stone, and then had a swim. Only seen one snake so far!


  25/07/2011
  Watched Aussie Rules footy on T V in the Ironclad last night  it was a local derby between Perths West Coast Eagles and Freemantle Dockers, the Eagles won by 1 point, 65 to 64. It’s a really fast moving, exciting game, I could get addicted.
  That was our last visit to the pub as unfortunately we have had to come back o grotty Port Hedland to re-supply. The roadhouse in Marble Bar had the usual freezer with a very limited stock and the food we bought from it turned out to be the worst meal ever! Rubber sausages with an indescribable taste, they actually didn’t taste of anything , frozen veg tasteless . That’s roadhouse fare really, however apart from that we really enjoyed our stay at Marble Bar. Very quirky.
 On the drive back we again saw feral camels, a group of about 16, a bit too far away in the bush to get decent photos.
  Back here in Port Hedland, it is noticeable how much cooler it is, with the sea breeze, and how much noisier it is than Marble Bar.  We won’t be here for long!