I didn’t stay long in Port Hedland on this trip so thought I would throw in a piece that I wrote after a two week stay here in late 2012/early 13 (see below). It breaks the parry-graph model, but what the heck. Some of you would know that the 2012 trip took place a few weeks after the breakup of my 13 year relationship. I was pretty raw but Port Hedland allowed a dollop of solitude and some welcome distractions, thus providing a good start to the healing process. So it was strange to return in 2014 and memories were rekindled of the emotional roller coaster that was my mind in late 2012: elation with the freedom and dramatic reduction in responsibility contrasted with the crash in confidence that comes with losing the support of someone that you thought would always ‘be there’ for you. It’s a clichéd phrase but time does heal: the opportunity to do some travel has been seized, I have a wonderful family and friendship circle, my confidence is the highest it has been, I am comfortable being alone and I’m a lot wiser about myself. Lordy me, I might almost trust myself in a relationship, should the opportunity arise.
Pilbara pitstop: December 2012
What does a pit stop symbolise? An opportunity to recharge, re-fuel, perform a health check or, at a less specific level, just fix something up? For me, my recent Pilbara pit stop was all this and a whole lot more.
I had not undertaken much in the way of research or forward planning prior to the trip, apart from responding acceptingly to an electronic invitation to be part of a community monitoring program. So, in addition to a need for some solace and reflection, I had few preconceptions of the two main activities that would define my Port Hedland experience: the relentless 24 hour-a-day industrial activity juxtaposed with the silent and indomitable drama of species survival.
Port Hedland is alive with fluoro jackets. It is a township in constant motion and an ever present mechanical hum. This, in turn, relies on cosmopolitan recruitment to keep iron ore moving and allow the ongoing expansion that enables ‘more’ to be moved. All the while, the stock pile dwarfs the machinery that is relentless in its movement.
Consider also the nutty, can-do tugs that commandingly steer the tankers with their nationally valuable mother lode of iron ore: carefully escorted into port on a daily basis with a return trip, a few days later, at high tide and back out to safe waters. There are some similarities with the focus of my trip; the endangered flatback turtle mother with her small determined offspring.
As a FIFO volunteer with the Care for Hedland turtle monitoring program, I was an eager witness to the comings and goings of mothers and babes. My role was to accompany the local volunteer crew who perform a daily commitment to record the success, or otherwise, of egg laying and the resultant emergence of hatchlings. My reward was far greater than the labour required, for the turtles can unassumingly teach humans a thing or two about dogged diligence in the face of immense adversity. Some words that come to mind; purposeful heaving up the beach, methodical and precise excavation of egg laying chambers, a beach littered with craters like an exploded minefield, the tug of the ocean, soft and tiny flipper-falls imprinting on the beach, a plethora of predators in wait and a human moral dilemma of whether to assist the struggle.
The hatchlings are optimistic, patterned jewels with the soft white edging of a newly born life form. They can be distracted from their ocean objective by amber pearls of light strung like a necklace along the foreshore – tough luck to be born on the only turtle nesting beach that falls within an Australian township. We must be strong in our observance of these endangered environmental treasures with their mysterious ecology. For it is the natural order of things that only 1 in 2,000 survive to make the return trip to the same beach some 30 years hence.
On Cemetery and Pretty Pool beaches an unobtrusive drama is played out where the odds of survival are slim. All this takes place a few propellers distance from the visual and auditory dominance of the iron ore industry. I make a toast to the flatbacks and the Port Hedland volunteers who strive for the turtles well-being – a privilege to observe and an unforgettable experience.
Post script: there was one lone, several days old mother turtle track on Cemetery Beach when I was in Port Hedland recently. The main period is November to March. I did, however, get a chance to swish around the inshore reef at Cemetery Beach to see my old friends the spongy coral, the crab that is prepared to take you on and the octopus that squirts you as you pass by and keeps squirting in ever decreasing dribbles.
parrygraphs 