A typical Pilbara sand dune near Newman

Newman
Large and modern mining town in the Pilbara
Newman is a model mining town. A modern, attractive centre in the heart of the Hamersley Ranges, it serves the two huge mines at Mount Whaleback and Orebody 29.

Located 1186 km north of Perth on the Great Northern Highway and 546 m above sea level, Newman is the largest town in the East Pilbara.

The Eastern Pilbara is one of the most isolated and inhospitable regions in Australia. Temperatures in summer time hover around 40°C and the hot winds blow in off the Great Sandy Desert. It is hardly surprising that the Aborigines who lived in the area didn't have to contend with the advance of Europeans until the twentieth century.

The first European into the area was Francis Gregory who travelled though the area to the north of present-day Newman in 1861 and observed the obvious iron ore deposits which coloured the mountain ranges. In 1876 Ernest Giles, who the year before had crossed from South Australia to Western Australia, attempted to reverse the process. He left Perth, travelled north to the Murchison and Ashburton Rivers and then headed east. With his second-in-command Alec Ross and four camels Giles travelled from the headwaters of the Ashburton to the range of mountains which lie to the north of Newman. At the time he was suffering from temporary blindness. Ross virtually had to lead Giles up the hills. Although his vision was bad Giles' humour was intact and, as a result of his affliction, he named the range Ophthalmia. Giles was unimpressed with the land.

The next expedition into the area occurred in 1896 when Aubrey Woodward Newman planned to lead a party from the goldmining town of Cue north towards Roebourne. Newman died from typhoid before the journey began but the new commander, William Rudell, honoured his departed leader by naming the highest mountain in the Ophthalmia Range, Mount Newman (1053 metres).

The first settlers into the area were John and Daisy Bates who established Glen Garrick sheep and cattle station in 1901. Gold prospectors, encouraged by the finds at Nullagine and Marble Bar in the north and Meekatharra and Cue in the south, scoured the area but had no success.

The East Pilbara remained a marginal pastoral area until the early 1960s. In 1957 the prospector Stan Hilditch discovered huge iron ore deposits at a mountain located 5 km south-east of Mt Newman, which he named Mount Whaleback, which has since become the largest open-cut iron ore mine in the world. At the time the export restrictions on iron ore which had been imposed during the war were still in place. The ore Hilditch had found was virtually useless. Three years later the embargo was lifted and Hilditch, with his partner, A.C. Warman, pegged a claim on Mount Whaleback. A consortium was formed and between 1967 and 1969 the American company Bechtel Pacific turned this lonely piece of desert into Australia's most productive iron ore mine. In those two years the biggest open-cut iron ore mine in Australia was established, the town of Newman was built, the longest privately owned railway (426 km from Newman to Port Hedland) in the world was constructed, and the port facilities at Port Hedland were upgraded to handle 16 000 tonnes of iron ore per hour.

The first shipment of iron ore left Port Hedland in April 1969 bound for the steel mills of Japan. Today the Mount Newman Mining Company Ltd is 85 per cent owned by BHP.

In 1975 the mining company, aware of the inhospitable nature of the terrain, planted 60 000 trees and shrubs in order to make the town less like a desert outpost. In 1981 Newman ceased to be a closed 'company town' so that today it has a number of facilities for the visitor and is administered by the East Pilbara Shire.

The ore production statistics of the Mount Newman area are awesome. It is estimated that the Hamersley Range contains 33 billion tonnes of iron ore. The Mount Whaleback open-cut mine will eventually reach a depth of 350 m below the surrounding plain. The trains which carry the ore to the coast have been known to move over 18 000 tonnes in a single haul. The railway line from Newman to Port Hedland runs downhill for all but 30 km of its entire length. And, amazing as it seems, the mine produces 30 million tonnes of iron ore every year.

Things to see:  

Attractions around Newman
Visitors to the town can arrange to inspect the mine by contacting the Newman Visitor Centre on (08) 9175 2888. To gain an overall perspective on the town and its environs it is worth visiting Radio Hill Lookout which is on Newman Drive on the way out to the mine.

The town's Museum, located in Kurra Street off Newman Drive, has an interesting display of relics from the town's brief history including the first Haulpak used at Mount Whaleback. Haulpaks are the giant trucks used to carry up to 200 tonnes of iron ore from the mine face to the railhead. If it is closed the Museum can be opened by contacting (08) 9175 2875.

A Story About Life in Mt Newman
James and I arrived at Mount Newman, an open cast iron ore mine in Western Australia. We quickly settled into our furnished flat and decided to rent a television from our local TV station. This was in a single-storey building on the edge of town and catered for the Mount Newman mining township of about two thousand people.

I waited in the car while James went inside and he returned a few minutes later, saying: "I think I've found you a job!" I went in and met the technician, who was looking for someone to help run the TV station. We arranged that I should return that evening to watch the programmes being sent to air.

By the following day the job was mine. The staff consisted of a technician and one other girl, Barbara. She and I each worked three days in a row and if either of us had a problem we rang the technician, who lived next door.

The programmes were flown up to the mine and remained with us for 24 hours before being despatched to the next mine on the following day. All the programmes were brown tape on large spools, unlike the video cassettes of today. Quite often the tapes warped in the heat and it was necessary to increase the tension by holding your finger against the tape, sometimes for the whole programme, to stop the picture rolling. There were two machines and when the tapes required "joining" on air, it was quite an art to synchronise voice and movement as one tape finished and you changed to the next. The finished tape was then rewound and the next spool made ready.

On my first evening alone, after a week of training, the telephone rang just after I had done a successful "join". It was the technician calling from the pub. I had put the wrong machine onto rewind and the township was watching the closing credits of Steptoe and Son with the horse and cart trotting backwards!

Besides sending programmes to air, my duties included TV rentals and reading the local news and sports results. On occasions I would read the news as a "voice over" with a stills caption, or sometimes I sat in front of a fixed camera and read "live" on air. It was necessary to remember to close the door to the toilet before speaking, as the frogs that lived under the washbasin could be quite vocal. It looked a little odd if you opened your mouth to speak as a frog croaked!

One memorable time I was reading the local news and sports results "live" and a small poisonous redback spider lowered itself from the ceiling, between me and the paper I was holding.

It moved slowly and I read quickly, hoping to finish before it reached the desk and ran who knew where. I wondered if the camera was picking up the fact that I had begun to sweat. I can honestly say that the news was read in record time, not in a calm professional manner with clear diction, but with me slowly becoming cross-eyed (one eye on the spider and one on the sports results). I was reading so fast that I think I jumbled up the names and events of the previous week's sports. The cricket team were surprised to hear that they'd won the squash match and the town's fastest swimmer won the cricket.

Needless to say the phone was red hot with complaints so in the end I left it off the hook. The camera had picked up my sweaty cross-eyed look, but not the spider. Most people put my strange behaviour down to too much sun and of course "she's a pommie".

I really enjoyed my year working for NEWR7 and was sad to leave when it was time to return to England."

This story is taken from "Polly takes the scenic route - Through France by pony and trap" by Gay Pyper, published by the Leonie Press of Hartford, Northwich UK. The ISBN is 1 901253 33 3. It was launched on June 7,2003

	Tourist Information
	Newman Tourist Information Centre & Museum Gallery Fortescue Ave P.O. Box 303 Newman WA 6753 Telephone: (08) 9175 2888 Facsimile: (08) 9175 2964 Email: newmantb@norcom.net.au
	Motels
	Mercure Inn Newman Dve Newman WA 6753 Telephone: (08) 9175 1101, 1800 642 244 Facsimile: (08) 9175 2779 Rating: ***
	Caravan Parks
	Auski Tourist Village Great Northern Hwy Newman WA 6753 Telephone: (08) 9176 6988
	Dearlove's Caravan Park Cowra Dve Newman WA 6753 Telephone: (08) 9175 2802 Rating: ***
	Newman Caravan Park Kalgan Dve Newman WA 6753 Telephone: (08) 9175 1428 Facsimile: (08) 9175 1484 Rating: ***
	Restaurants
	Chinese Kitchen Restaurant Shop 11 Boulevarde Shopping Centre Newman WA 6753 Telephone: (08) 9175 2274
	Newman Asian Food Centre Hilditch Shopping Mall Newman WA 6753 Telephone: (08) 9177 8668
	Newman Club Mindara Dve Newman WA 6753 Telephone: (08) 9175 1110 Facsimile: (08) 9177 8549
	Red Sands Tavern 1982 Newman Dve Newman WA 6753 Telephone: (08) 9177 8866