Marble Bar

After reluctantly leaving Broome last week, we spent a few nights by the beach at Barn Hill Station before making our way to Marble Bar, officially the hottest town in the country. We're back in the Pilbara, on Nayamal country.

Some of you might be wondering why. It's a reasonable question. There are a few reasons, associated with our tedious and ongoing technical/mechanical problems. But mostly it's because of our friend Kevin, who's given us a few good tips along the way, and who suggested we visit Marble Bar, so we did. No pressure, Kev.

Marble Bar's a mining town and given its status as the country's hottest town, we expected to see a ramshackle collection of corrugated iron buildings shimmering in the heat at the end of a long, flat road. Happily, we couldn't have been more wrong. About a hundred kms from the turnoff just out of Port Hedland, the scenery changes into those rocky red hills and scrubby green ranges that we love about the Pilbara. The town is nestled among the hills and is surprisingly green.

The town was founded in 1893 when gold was discovered here. Marble Bar was so named because of a rich seam of what was thought to be marble running through the nearby hills and gorges. It turned out to be jasper, not marble, but "Jasper Bar" doesn't have quite the same ring to it so the name stuck.

Up until the 1950s the mines around Marble Bar had produced around 1.5 tonnes of gold, but it seemed to run out half-way through the century, sending prospectors to other areas of the state. Marble Bar's population is now 194, excluding all the grey nomads and Labradors passing through at any given time.

Marble Bar's entry to the Guinness Book of Records as Australia's hottest town came in 1924 when, for 161 days leading up to 20 April, the temperature never dropped below 37.8 C. The record still stands but that was well before we started to destroy the ozone layer, so presumably it's possible that it'll be beaten at some stage, maybe even by Marble Bar itself. We don't want to be here if and when that happens.

We got out and about a little bit this morning, exploring the places we could go without bashing Sonia the Kluger around too much. Hopefully you'll enjoy the photos and put Marble Bar in your trip planner if you're up in the area. It's worth a visit (thanks, Kevin!).

Oh, and for those of you wondering, it's been a comfortable 31 degrees today, with a soft breeze blowing. This is a couple of degrees warmer that the August average, and much the same as the weather we've been experiencing for the past month or so. We are not complaining.