Today we went into Karratha for a reminiscing tour. I lived in Karratha between 1990 – 2014 and Sarah
was born here and attended school here.
First, we had a drive around Dampier and it was embarrassing
that this town hasn’t changed at all in forty years. The government and the big
companies that rip billions of dollars out of this town each year should be
ashamed as they have not given anything back to the people who live and work in
the extreme temperatures in this town to make the billions for these companies.
This is the worst port we have see on the whole Western
Australian coast. The marina is a joke and has not changed, the HHB&SC is
falling apart and there isn’t even a commercial jetty for obtaining fuel and
water.
Hampton Harbour marina
Hampton Harbour Boating & Sailing Club
Listening to the local radio, after thirty years they are
still complaining about the monopoly the airlines have on the town and the outrageous
price of flights for the public while the big companies get all the discount
flights.
Next stop was the Burrup Peninsular and the North West Shelf
LNG plant where I used to work. It was pathetic that the visitors centre was
closed and they couldn’t pay someone to work on weekends over the busy winter
with many cars pulled up to take a look. I guess that cuts into shareholders profits.
North West Shelf LNG plant
We drove down to Hearson’s Cove to take a look as we used to
have lots of BBQ’s here and go swimming. They have made some improvements here,
but have also built a massive ammonia plant nearby. After this, we headed into Karratha.
We lived in two different houses during our time here. The
Leslie Loop house was extremely lush with huge palm trees that I planted all
those years ago and the house and garden was well kept and now had a pool.
Next stop was the Tambrey Centre that used to be one of the
main places to hold all the big events. It was run down and derelict and in bad
need of refurbishment or demolition and it was a shock for us to see the place
in this condition.
From here we went to look at our Criddle Way house and it
was completely run down as well. It was so sad to see after raising a family there
and all the work I put into the lawn and garden.
We checked out some of our old friend’s houses, Pegs Creek
park, Bulgara oval and a few other places. The city centre has changed so much
its hard to recognise anything, but the shopping centre is still the same.
We did a big shop and then headed back to the boat. The
dingy was loaded up to the gunnels and it was a slow careful trip out to
Sirocco.
Later we had showers back at the club and we went to the
club for dinner and to watch the night life. There was a birthday party with everybody
wearing onesies and down stairs a work function with everyone all dressed up to
the max and loud disco music blaring.
It wasn’t long before some of the girls were pissed and took
their shoes off and were out dancing on the wet grass. It was fun to watch but
we were all pretty tired and around ten o’clock we headed back out to Sirocco
to listen to the music for several more hours.
With a four-meter tide, it was always fun trying not to bob
sled down the steep ramp to the dingy dock.
Track Sirocco’s
progress
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