20 years – to the month – after leaving Marble Bar, the town where he grew up, Toby Richardson and his father arrived in Port Hedland to start a trip two decades in the making.
Approaching sunset on the first day, looking for a spot to camp somewhere northeast of Port Hedland and south of Marble Bar.
Marble Bar is the hottest place in the world. The West Aussie town holds the heatwave record of 160 consecutive days over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
My father and I had been planning to travel by bike from Port Hedland to the site of a secret airbase from WW2 called Corunna Downs. The old runway where I learned to drive at the age of six was a part of the world that shaped my desire for adventure and love of the rugged outback. It was time to go back on a ride that would involve bugger-all bitumen, no GPS, no road maps, no respite from the elements, and a series of trails, tracks and nothingness that went off into the seemingly endless plains of The Pilbara.