If you are going on a trip around Australia, then one just has to go to the place that is said to be the hottest town in Australia, and see that beautiful Jasper stone again.  We visited Marble Bar in 2013 when our Aussiewide Bunderra caravan was new.  We took it for a trip north to give it a try, before heading off on our 2014 trip.  Back then I was not into this blogging!  I am enjoying researching the history of our Western Australian towns.

The plan was to leave Point Samson by 8.30am and we pulled out on time.  We did our usual stop at Whim Creek for morning tea.  We were last here in 2016 and then the place was abuzz.  An aboriginal Foundation had invested into the hotel and there was an art display upstairs.   You could also get a coffee, scones jam and cream.  Not so in 2018 and we did read recently that the Aboriginal Foundation was in financial trouble.  The hotel is still open and trading, but nothing for morning tea.  I think you can still get a coffee.  We said goodbye to Margaret and Dennis for a couple of days.  They are going on to Port Hedland and catching up with Dennis' granddaughter whilst there.  

Getting fuel at Port Hedland caused a bit of drama as finding a service station with the new road structure wasn't easy.  The BP one wasn't all that user friendly! You had to put the card in first and then there was a problem with the machine.  A helpful truckie told us we would be better to take the next road to the left and head out towards South Hedland and fuel up at the Puma Service Station.  This we did and we purchased some lunch there.

We had an uneventful trip to Marble Bar and we like it that way, arriving about 3.00pm. I bashed away on my laptop putting information to photos, much to Peter's annoyance.  It seems I should have been watching where the Bamboo Creek sign was etc.  Men...Big deal.  Just because I didn't know where Bamboo Creek was when Gerard Poot was story telling at the Comet Mine the next day!  But I did see the sign on the way back! 

The trip through the Coongan Pass is interesting and we were glad we met the truck with three trailers just after we had got through.  It helps if you have a two way and can call the truckies on Channel 40 and tell them you are coming through.  The truckies call a couple of times as they come through the pass.

John and I went for a walk down the main street about 4.30pm.  The Visitor Centre was still open so John picked up a couple of tourist maps.  We walked as far as the Government Buildings and were able to find out that the Museum was open from 8.00am until 3.00pm.  We were back in time to put on the midgie proof clothing, before we went up to have our afternoon drinkies at the Water Tank Lookout.  The colours on the ranges as the sun was setting were really beautiful.  The lookout provides good views over the town and we could just distinguish where John and Dorothy's mobile home was parked, because of the satellite dish sticking up.  There was another caravan between the two of us.

Tuesday morning we were up reasonably early as we had decided to pack a picnic lunch, go to the Museum first and then out to Chinaman's Pool, the Jasper Reserve and then to the Comet Mine Museum.

The Museum in the Government building is not very big.  It is open from 8 until 3 five days of the week and from 9 until 3 on the weekend.  Well I know it opens an hour later on the weekend, but not definite about the 3.00pm and I can't confirm on the internet.  Interesting that my search took me straight to Trip Advisor, so I thought I would check out the Chapman Valley Museum.  There is nothing and we don't even get to being one of the 'Ten Best Things to do in Nanson'!  

The lady at the Museum was very nice and I had taken some CWA photos on a USB in case we could share.  The Museum had nothing to share, but she was very grateful for the photos, which Dorothy and I found our way around Windows 8 on her computer so they could be copied.  I took a photo of the CWA sign that was at the front of Poinciana House, which was the CWA Centre in Marble Bar until it was sold in 1990, when the branch disbanded. I had a photo of members at the branches 50th birthday which I gave to the Museum.  I also said that I would arrange for a CWA magazine to be sent to the Museum that was published in March 1986.  It contains the story of Poinciana House.  Poinciana House is heritage listed and just happens to have been purchased by the ladies brother.  Leanne and her mother are the two volunteers that keep the Museum open.  Leanne told us the population was 147, but at the moment it is less than that.  In the 2016 census the population was 174.  We did a drive around the town and took some photos of the heritage trail plaques.  There was a plaque near Poinciana House with a lot of information about CWA in the area.  Shame the information wasn't in the Museum also.

The graph showing the temperatures of each day during the summer of 1923/24 when the temperature in Marble Bar never dropped below 37.8C for 161 consecutive days, was there to be seen.  It is for this reason that Marble Bar has the title of being the 'Hottest Town in Australia'.  We actually walked to the Iron Clad Hotel for a drink on Thursday afternoon and the barmaid showed us a photo on her phone.  It was only 10 degrees when she shut the hotel at 10.30pm on Wednesday night.  No wonder we turned the airconditioner on to warm the caravan on Thursday morning!  It was 7 degrees, but then it was a lot colder at Woodlands Farm.  4.6 degrees and only 16 degrees during the day.  24.8 degrees in Marble Bar was lovely.

We went back to the caravans for morning tea and picked up our lunch.  Then out to Chinamans Pool and the Jasper Reserve on the Coongan River.  This time Peter had a small bucket to get water from the river and throw it around over the rocks.  The colours are amazing.  We clambered around for 30 minutes or so and did lots of clicking!  Marble Bar was named after a local deposit of mineral, which was first thought to be marble, but which later proved to be Jasper (a highly coloured cryptocrystalline variety of quartz).  When cut and polished it is even more beautiful.  It is a $10,000 fine to take Jasper from the reserve, but it is permissible to fossick at the Jasper deposit on the road to the Comet Mine.  Peter had a small pick in the back of the car, so we each have a couple of pieces of Jasper to cart with us for the rest of the journey!

After the Jasper deposit, it was on to the Flying Fox and the Comet Mine.  Gerard Poot manages the Museum at the Comet Mine and has been there for three years.  Gerard used to farm at Ajana and he and Liz had Pazellies in Geraldton for a number of years.  Huge change to now be on his own at the Comet Mine and he doesn't get home very often.  He did a very good job at telling us everything about the Museum.  We certainly got nothing like we did from Gerard, when we visited five years ago.  A group of five men came in a few minutes after us, so there was a group of nine for Gerard to sit down on the front verandah overlooking the mine, before the story telling begun.  He did do a good job, but he had a captive audience and he didn't really know when to stop.  I guess if more visitors had come in, he would have had to shorten it.  Gerard always did like to talk, so he is in his element at the Comet Mine Museum.

It was lunchtime and we were undecided what to do for the rest of the day.  So we went back to Chinamans Pool and ate out lunch on the table and chairs in the picnic area.  Chinamans Pool was the locals swimming hole in the summertime, before they got a pool in the town.  It is named after the Chinese market gardens which were established beside the Coongan River by Chinese migrants to the goldfields.

The 'Flying Fox' was built to measure the depth of the river.  Now this is the story that Gerard told us.  When the  river was in flood they would tie a bucket to the Flying Fox and take it out to the middle of the river and then lower it to the water to measure the depth.  

This is from a very old image that I found on the internet. It is the Coongan River - Marble Bar Gauging Station.  It was commissioned in December 1966.  The highest flow recorded was from Cyclone Enid in 1986 when the flow was recorded at 2940 cubic metres of water per second.  The river height was 6.72 metres above the river bed.  It was once selected as a possible dam site for Pilbara water supplies.  A continuous water level recorder operated by a pressure sensor system was housed in the instrument shelter.  The cable car spans 327 metres and is used by PWD hydrographers during times of flood to suspend a current meter, used to measure velocity from a manually driven cable car.  What a shame the information sign is till not there.

Gold was discovered at the Comet Mine in 1936 by Tommy Starr, and was mined until 1955. The old processing plant is quite a sight and its 75 metre smokestack is said to be the highest in the southern hemisphere. The old mine managers house has been converted into a small mineral museum and is financed by a local mining company. It is written that the mine is now the home of the rare Pilbara Ghost Bat. But Gerard didn't include that in his storytelling!

He did tell us about the airbase at the station 'Corunna Downs' during WW2, when there were 2000 service men stationed there.  There were lots of WW2 photos in the museum and the remains of a few bombs in the grounds.  Corunna Downs was a secret airfield located in scrub and spinifex country, about 16 kms south west of Marble Bar.  They carried out numerous bombing raids on Japanese bases and shipping.  There were two intersecting bitumen runways which were camouflaged with spinifex.  After WW2 39 live bombs and Thompson sub machine guns were found buried on the station.  There was a prisoner of war camp six miles north of Corunna Downs Station.

We decided we should check out a gorge whilst in Marble Bar.  The Glen Herring Gorge was further on the Hillside-Woodstock road going through to the Auski Roadhouse, so we set off to find it.  The road was quite rough and once we crossed the Coongan River again, we could see from the map  'We weren't there yet'!  There was still some bouncing to be done!   But people do tow their caravans across this road.  But if we thought the road was rough, we sure had the billy goat track to go the three kilometres into the gorge.  But Pete picked his way over it and the trek into the gorge was well worth the exercise and the visit.  We have been told Dooleena Gorge is well worth a visit.  In hindsight we would have been better to have gone back to Marble Bar and gone out to it.  It wouldn't have been any further and we would have been on the bitumen.  But we had an adventure!  Carrawine Gorge is another to visit on the Rippon Hills Road and many people go and stay for a few days in the camping area.

Finally once back in Marble Bar we found the Horizon Power solar panels.  The state-of-the-art power station incorporates single axis tracking solar panels with diesel technology and short-term energy storage systems. This combination of technology is the first of its kind in the world and ensures a very high level of solar energy penetration into the towns' networks and a reliable supply of power.  I have found an image on the net to show the tracking panels.  It was impossible to get them through the fence.  Marble Bar and Nullagine both had the state-of-the-art power stations opened in December 2011.

We have enjoyed our visit to Marble Bar in the East Pilbara Shire.  The Shire of East Pilbara covers an area close to 380,000 square kilometres and is the largest in Australia and the third largest in the world. There were two early road districts, Bamboo later to become Marble Bar and Nullagine, both established around 1898.  In 1972 they merged to become the East Pilbara Shire and Newman is the other main town.

We can recommend a walk to the quirky Iron Clad Hotel that will celebrate its 125th anniversary in September.  There are a few quite crude stickers stuck on the fridges, but one has to accept that.  No tap beer and drinks are cooled in the fridges, but served from a big ice box behind the bar.  The hotel serves meals and the barmaid is keen to put herself into the tourist photos.  You don't even have to ask.

The Anzac Memorial in the park is well worth a visit.  It was part of the reason for the walk to the pub.  I didn't have any photos! Many of these Anzac 100 Year projects have produced images with corten steel.  It is such a shame the bore water in the park is having such an effect on the cutouts.  They were very effective and incorporated the significance of the WW2 Airbase at Corunna.  And the large piece of Jasper that had been polished was quite something.