MARBLE BAR - WA < Aussie Caravanning Lifestyle

After reading our previous post you will know we had a flat tyre during our adventure along the Hillside-Woodstock Road to Marble Bar and we were helped out by a very generous ‘Good Samaratin’. Now we are waiting for a new tyre to arrive in Port Hedland. In the meantime we are enjoying our stay in Marble Bar.

For those of you that don’t know we are in the East Pilbara and the landscape is literally billions of years old. Driving along we have been totally engrossed with the magnetic charm and the sheer scale of the ancient rock forms. Quite majestic and I do hope our pictures give you some sort of an idea. It’s not at all what I imagined it would be.

The Shire of the East Pilbara is the largest shire in the world covering approximately 372,571 square kilometres. Marble Bar is one of 3 towns in the Shire and the other two towns are Newman and Nullagine. Marble Bar is located 1476 kms north of Perth and 200 kms South-East of Port Hedland. The town sprang up during the gold rush to the Pilbara in the late 1880’s.

Most people visit Marble Bar because of its claim to being Australia’s hottest town. You see in the 1920’s Marble Bar experienced 161 consecutive days of the mercury hovering above 37.8 degrees and this record apparently has not been broken. But it still gets bloody hot here in summer and it is not uncommon as told to us by locals for it to be over 45. At this time of the year (Autumn) you will often experience mild days of 31 degrees or above with comfortable cool nights. We came to Marble Bar for a very special personal reason – more of that in another post.

So what can I do in Marble Bar:

👉The Marble Bar Pool is about 5 kms west of town. Here you will see the ancient rock bar that crosses the Coongan River. The rock bar was originally thought to be Marble hence the town’s name ‘Marble Bar’ but the rock turned out be Jasper. When you first look at the rock bar it looks similar, but different, to other rock forms but when you splash water over it the brilliant colour of the Jasper comes to life. 🎨⛰🌋

👉Chinaman’s Pool has lovely grassed picnic areas and swimming holes. It was once the market garden area which apparently fed the town back in the gold rush days.
👉‘The Bar General’ store is open Monday to Friday and Saturday till 1pm – closed on Sundays to give the very delightful Managers, Cheryl and Clive a well-earned break. Fresh bread is baked daily and if you’re lucky Clive might have also baked a yummy Apple Turnover or two. The store is well stocked with groceries and other items and also is the Post Office for town. 🍞🛒

👉The ‘Ironclad Hotel’ opens daily at 4.30 pm where you are sure to be able to enjoy a cold beer or two and delicious good old ‘pub grub’. 🍻

👉The ‘Marble Bar Travellers Rest’ is where you can fuel up, or enjoy a bite to eat inside. They have the most awesome looking sausage rolls and cakes too, all baked on the premises. It’s open 7 days a week and carries a stock of grocery items. It also has accommodation for those not travelling with a caravan or camper.🍔
👉The Visitors Information Centre and Marble Bar Museum is situated in the Old Government Building. The ladies inside are very welcoming and can tell you just about anything you need to know about the town. Lots of memorabilia about the old pioneering days of Marble Bar. 👀
👉Visit the historic Comet Gold Mine which had a great museum. ⚒
👉The WWII Air Base in Corunna Downs which apparently was a secret air base from 1942-1947. It’s about a 35km drive from Marble Bar. Not much there but you can see the abandoned airstrips which were so cleverly designed and camouflaged with netting and spinifex grass and because of the heat haze the enemy were never able to locate them. You know that it was also so far inland that it was out of range for most enemy aircraft. From here long range B24 Liberator Bombers had sufficient fuel range to carry out missions over a 14 hour period. Another awesome piece of history neither of us ever heard about.🛩
👉Take a drive to the water tower lookout above town. It gives you an extensive 360 degree view over and around the area of Marble Bar.👀

We stayed at the Marble Bar Caravan Park – which by the way is the only one in town. Bruce is the Manager and is always up for a chat and very helpful as to making sure you are happy where you set up.

👍Caravan park sites are grassed and shady with power and water🔌
👍Two amenity blocks. They are old but very clean and have great hot showers.🚿
👍Laundry👕
👍Camp kitchen🍽
👍Telstra reception📱
👍TV reception for ABC📺
👍Pet friendly 🐶

👉👉If you are after a dump point 🚽 you will find one in town near the Memorial Park along with a water 🚰 tap to fill up your tanks.

The park has a really nice feel about it and we loved that we were somewhere with green grass and trees. It really makes for a nice change after being in red dirt for a while. Town also has a nice feel about it and it’s great to see that some pride has been taken into keeping it looking clean and tidy.

Well done Marble Bar 👏👌

Below are a list of others places we have visited that may be of interest to you:

Alice Springs to Broken Hill

Broken Hill to Sawtell – NSW

Free Camps – Broken Hill to Cobar -NSW

NSW – Free camps, Donation camps, Showgrounds and Caravan Parks 2019

Victoria 2017/2018

South Australia to Western Australia 2019

South Australia trip 2017/2018

Crossing the Nullarbor

Western Australia Coastal Trip 2018

WA’s Got the Lot 2019