NEWS of tropical cyclone Christine, that affected Western Australian towns like Port Hedland, Karratha, Dampier and Paraburdoo, resonated deeply with Rosevears MLC Kerry Finch.
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The West Launceston resident in the 1960s spent 18 months in the region, including Karratha and Paraburdoo before they existed.
He yesterday related some of his experiences.
``I was looking for that Boys' Own adventure and spent a month at Savage River earning the money to get across to WA,'' he recalled.
``My first job was with Hammersley Iron at Dampier, where I worked in the power station and that included working on the former George Town power-generating ship the George H Evans .
``But the `good' money is always somewhere else and I flew into Tom Price to help build the shopping centre there.
``It was a great experience, but still better money called and I went further inland to where a place called Paraburdoo was going to be built - it was the most magnificent Albert Namatjira-valley.
``I remember, having gone for a look, sitting on a ridge looking down into the valley and watching the colours on the hills in front of me change as the sun set behind me - it was magnificent.
``There were two caravans in the valley and we lived in them as we assembled the flat-pack working men's quarters that then housed the workers who built Paraburdoo.
``That was good money, but there was even better money to be had at Karratha at the first government office to be built on what was just bare ground.
``It would then administer the building of the camp to house the workers who built Karratha itself.''
There were 16,500 resident in Karratha, as of the 2011 census.