Tales From A First Year Teacher: Adapting To Life In The Pilbara

Continued from Tales From A First Year Teacher: Surviving The First Week Of Term

So from the airport we went straight to Pretty Pool. I was quite excited about this as from what I have seen of Hedland so far, it’s not real pleasant to the eye. It’s basically red dirt and shrubs with a town amongst it. Maybe this Pretty Pool would be different…..

Mmmmm well first impressions…..more red dirt, a few shrubs, the ocean and a pool of brown dirty water. I had hoped that with a name like ‘Pretty Pool’, it would be a beautiful oasis with clear blue water and some lovely grass to sit on, but that wasn’t to be.

Pretty Pool

Regardless of the look of Pretty Pool, we had a great time. The water was lovely and warm and there was a beautiful sunset. We drank wine in the water and got to know all the other teachers a bit better.

So I had survived the first week of term and was really looking forward to enjoying my weekend. I had agreed with my boyfriend that I wouldn’t do school work all weekend and that we would make some time to look around and get to know our new home a little bit. As our car wasn’t here yet, we hired a 4WD for the weekend.

One of the things on our list for the weekend was to visit the port. This is where all the big ships come in to pick up the iron ore. It’s pretty awesome to watch the ships come in with the tug boats guiding them to dock. The pictures below show one of the ships in the port as well as part of the iron ore plant.

Ship in Port

Iron Ore Plant

It didn’t really take us very long to look around South Hedland and Port Hedland. There’s not too much to see really. By the time we checked out the shopping centre in South Hedland, the shopping strip in Port Hedland, saw the port and drove along the coast, there wasn’t much left to see in the town. Although there were some pretty cool sand dunes out in Port Hedland which my boyfriend had lots of fun driving around on.

My boyfriend decided that he was going to need to buy a tinny (small boat) almost immediately. He said the fishing was meant to be pretty top notch and that as there’s not much else to do here on the weekends we may as well be out on the water fishing.

So you guessed it….before he had even found a job we were the proud owners of a second hand tinny. There’s a pic below for you, and it is now my husband’s pride and joy.

The Tinny

Although, I can’t really complain because every time we have been out in the tinny we have come home with bucket loads of fish. I didn’t think I could really get sick of eating seafood, but as my boyfriend wasn’t working yet he spent the first month fishing, fishing and more fishing. Needless to say that’s all we really ate. Check out some of our fishing hall of fame photos below.

Barramundi

Mulloway

Mackerel

Mackerel

Mud Crab

The other thing we were getting sick of was living in the motel. It was good at first because our room was cleaned every day and we didn’t need to cook. We went to the dining room for breakfast and dinner and we could pack our lunch for the day. But after spending close to a month there, we were pretty sick of it.

After finally badgering the Education Department, they said they had found a place for us. So off we went to check it out…..but I’ve gotta say it was disgraceful. There’s no way I was going to live in that. It was like an old demountable with the old school air conditioners.

They had told me that it was fine and the last teacher that was in there said she had no problems. So I got the phone number of this teacher and gave her a call. Let’s just say, she was glad that she had moved out. There were new people living across the road who had parties all the time, so there was music blaring at all hours of the night.

I got back on the phone to the Education Department and let them know I would not be living in that house. Surprisingly they had found a different house. We did a drive by and it looked okay from the road. They wanted to have it painted before we moved in, so 4 weeks after we arrived in Hedland we finally got to move in to our own house.

I think I will be okay living in this town called Hedland. There are parts I really love (such as the people and fishing) and parts I really dislike (the humidity and lack of trees), but I’m sure I will adjust with time.

Now back to my classroom. So much to do and so little time….how am I going to get everything I want done? I have big plans for my classroom and students. Now I get to put in practice all the things I learned at Uni. I suppose I will need to just take one step at a time and learn to settle in as a real, bonafide teacher.

Stay tuned for the next instalment……Tales From A First Year Teacher: Learning Social Skills

Other Articles in This Series:
Tales From A First Year Teacher: Will I Ever Get A Job?
Tales From A First Year Teacher: My First Day As A Real Teacher
Tales From A First Year Teacher: Surviving The First Week Of Term
Tales From A First Year Teacher: Learning Social Skills