DAY 73 & 74 – 80 MILE BEACH - CHILLING OUT ON THE BEACH.

We are in holiday mode,  not tourist mode at the moment.   

We haven’t done much the past couple of days.  We left Broome and travelled about 370kms to spend a couple of days at Eighty Mile Beach, just to chill out and do a bit of fishing.  

Constant stream of these road trains on the road today.

This one passed us

And then it passed Ian and Kathy

The drive was pretty boring really,  long long straight stretches of nothing,  flat barren land,  none of the lovely ranges we had encountered on our drive from Kununurra to Derby.

Barren land with big dirt whirly winds

We covered about 250kms and had a rest stop for morning tea at a rest area called Stanley,  nothing like the other Stanley we have previously visited in Tasmania.  Still it was nice to get out of the car, take a toilet break and stretch our legs.  

We had a quick cuppa and a couple of biscuits and it was back on the road again….

We had thought we might have stopped at Sandfire Roadhouse for lunch but by the time we got there, there were quite a line up of caravans behind us and as Eighty Mile Beach was only another 40kms down the highway and then another 8kms of dirt road into the Caravan Park, we thought we would push on and have lunch when we got there. 

We also had a sneaking suspicion that the vans coming up behind us might also be heading for the same spot as we were (turns out that we were mostly right) and we wanted to get a spot at the caravan park.  We needn’t have worried as this park is huge.  Over 200 van sites.  It is a little oasis on the beach.  It never ceases to amaze me, as the dirt here is the deepest red almost to the first sand dune and then suddenly is turns to creamy white sand, it is something we don’t really see back home..

Arriving at 80 Mile Beach Caravan Park

Lovely well maintained caravan park.

The caravan park is all red dirt roads but they work very hard (using bore water)to make sure there are some lovely green-grassed spots in the park.  It is really very pretty with the contrasting colours of red earth, green grass, white sands, and perfectly blue skies with a dot of white clouds here and there.  

It was a little after 2pm when we arrived.  Steve was biting at the chomp to get down onto the beach to fish.  He had already been over to check out the beach before he had even set up.    It was a quick setup with very little coming out of the van for our stay here.  We had a quick bite of lunch and then he was off.  

80 Mile Beach WA

Lots of shells on the beach...

The beach wasn’t quite its usual pristine self, as the water’s were a little muddy and murky with the high tides and the winds that are blowing at the moment, 40 knot gale easterly winds, so they are pretty hot.   It did make it a little easier to cast out further into the ocean.

The beach was packed with people fishing for kilometres in both directions. Like Broome, there are so many cars and buggies on the beach here also. 

Steve enjoyed a fish from off the beach..

He's happy when he is fishing.

Beautiful spot to fish...

This is the only bait we have at the moment

Fishing until sunset...

He only had a lure, so he didn’t really any strikes as he was down there a little to late after the high tide, (4pm) but he still enjoyed being out in the water and the fresh air.  He didn’t notice too many of those still left out there catching fish, so he didn’t feel so bad….

Shells scattered all over the beach

Patterns in the sand

I managed to get down to the beach just before 5pm, when it was a little cooler,  and enjoyed looking at all the shells that are scattered all over the shore line.  We also enjoyed watching another golden sunset over the ocean.  I can’t get enough of these western coast sunsets, just stunning and as someone else here said, they are actually “Staircases to Heaven”.  Aptly named I think…

Beautiful WA Sunset - "Staircases to Heaven"

 Once the sun had set we wandered back up from the beach, and it was time to cook dinner. 

The caravan park is nice and green.

The white sand meets the red dirt...

 Steve and I were both on dinner duty tonight.  We were just having a BBQ with some of the rib eye fillet we had bought at Willare Roadhouse a few days previously, along with the left over pumpkin that I made into a fig, pumpkin and spinach salad.  We had a potato in it’s jacket, and some beetroot, so it was a nice simple dinner.  Ian and Kathy spoilt us by producing some magnum ice creams for desert.  

Ah the life of a beach bum…. Loving it…

Early morning on 80 Mile Beach - low tide

It was like quick sand - your feet sank right down into the wet sand.

The remains of a bogged 4WD can now only be seen at low tide.

This morning we got up early and Steve went for an early walk down onto the beach to see how far the tide went out and he saw what he thought was a log laying out on the mud flats.  He remembered someone telling him that there was a vehicle that was trapped on the beach and had been submerged out there, so we went over to investigate and sure enough, the remains of a car similar to a small Suzuki which only had the back of the seats, and roll bar visible.  He did take a photo of it for me.  

When he came back up from the beach, we went for a walk around the caravan park. 

We are still recording the names of the different brand of caravans we have spotted on our travels and we were able to add another 4 or 5 to our list again today.

 Steve had also spotted  a whole line of quad bikes with rather lavish (built for luxury fishing) trailers lined up ready for a days outing onto the beach.  Some looked pretty cool, and of course they screamed out to be photographed.  

We also came across a job vacancy advertised, when we found a skeleton working hard at an ironing board…. 

 We had a pretty leisurely morning,  did a load of washing, strapped down our awning as by now the breeze had come up and it was blowing a gale again, and indulged ourselves  with conversations and  cups of tea with Ian and Kathy and fellow travellers around our vans.  It is always interesting meeting new people and hearing their stories and tips on travelling..

Steve had visited the kiosk at the Caravan Park to find out about buying some bait for today’s fishing session and found out that they also make fresh home made pies which you can order for lunch… You can guess what we had for lunch today…

We all had lunch together and then this afternoon, the boys spent all afternoon down on the beach fishing.  They had plenty of nibbles today.  There were lots sharks around today, and Steve lost two bits of tackle to sharks which were too big to land.  Ian almost lost his rod to a large shark that just took off on him.  They lost quite a bit of fishing gear between them today, and Steve was quite sad to loose one of his favourite lures to another shark that took it and bolted.  He was a big one.  You could only fish in ankle deep water today.  The sharks were right up within 10 metres of the edge of the water…

Steve and Kathy both managed to catch a fish each, but not enough to give us a decent feed.  Still the fun was in trying to catch a big one, and at least there was plenty of action.

I had planned to go back down to the beach later in the afternoon, but lay down for a rest around 2.30pm and only woke as the sun was setting… I’m a bit worried now about whether I will manage to get to sleep at all tonight.  I don’t usually have three hour sleeps in the afternoon.

It has been a lovely relaxing chilled out day, nowhere to go, nowhere to be just enjoying our surroundings. 

We enjoyed dinner with Ian and Kathy again, this evening.  We are getting a little low on supplies, so we had Spag Bol loaded with vegetables and it was delicious.  A hearty meal is always enjoyed after spending time at the beach.  Must be something to do with the sea.

We live this little paradise tomorrow as we head further south.  Port Hedland is our destination for tomorrow night…