Marble Bar

MARBLE BAR

Thursday, 9th July.

Hitching up and moving off the site this morning presented no problems and we enjoyed an easy drive out of Port Hedland to Marble Bar, with not a lot of traffic and interesting scenery, especially the ranges which are stunning and worth the drive in alone.  

We drove through the Coongan Gorge,

and on into Marble Bar where we were greeted by Bruce, who runs the caravan park, shown to our site which is grassy and mostly shady, settled in, had lunch and went for a drive around town and out to Chinaman's Pool and Marble Bar Pool,  just 4kms out of town.  

Both very pretty spots supporting lots of birdlife and a little further along the unsealed road, we came to the jasper deposit, first thought to be marble which is how the town got its name.

 

When we returned to the caravan park it appeared to be full, or very near to it and we recognised our neighbours, who'd arrived in our absence, as the couple from Collie we'd been talking to on the Mt Welcome lookout in Roebourne on Tuesday.  They had also stayed at the Cooke Point Caravan Park in Port Hedland last night and had the same difficulties in maneouvreing onto their site....guess who won't be staying there again?  Marble Bar is known as "the hottest town in Australia", a fact that is still recorded by the Guinness Book of Records.  For 161 consecutive days leading up until 20th April, 1924, the temperature never dropped below 37.8 degrees, and this record still stands today.  Though quite warm here today, it's nowhere a heatwave and is actually rather cool this evening....jumper time!

MARBLE BAR - 2

Friday, 10th July.

Today was a lazy, relaxing day, a day of doing very little.  A gentle breeze wafted through the trees making it very pleasant in our laziness, though we did go for a little drive in the afternoon, to refuel sans caravan, to buy icecreams from the general store and to have a wander around. 

There's not a lot to do in Marble Bar but we are both happy we came here and we like it!  

At 5 o'clock we strolled to the Iron Clad Hotel,

 erected as Marble Bar's first hotel in 1892, one of the first two permanent buildings in the town at the time of the goldrush.  After ordering drinks at the bar, we wandered through to the beer garden where we were invited by a Kallaroo couple, Mike and his Canadian wife Nellie, to share their table and spent an interesting hour chatting and sharing travel stories.  Back at the caravan park, we chatted to next door neighbours from Collie, Deborah and Neil until bbq time and sat outside again to eat dinner....magic!